Today's big news was, of course, the announcement that Warner Bros is in fact going ahead with yet another Superman reboot. That's not terribly surprising, as various litigation involving the heirs of Superman creators Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel has made it of paramount importance that Warner Bros gets a new Superman film off the ground by 2011. But what is genuinely shocking is that Chris Nolan has been brought on to apparently 'oversee' the film. He's not (as of yet) directing it, and I'm not even sure at this point that he's producing it, but apparently Warner wants his name on the project in one form or another. And yes, buried in this information is the fact that John Nolan and David Goyer have begun writing a third Batman film. Good for them and best of luck.
Oh, slight digression, Nikki Finke's article contains yet another author basically libeling every Batman writer over the last forty years by claiming that Chris Nolan's Batman Begins was "was rebooted according to Frank Miller's film noirish take on Batman." Wrong, wrong, wrong! Nolan's Batman reboot, like Tim Burton's before him, was based on any number of Batman interpretations. At best you can give Frank Miller a token amount of credit for the second act of Batman Begins, which uses elements from Batman: Year One. If anything, the first two Nolan pictures were at least partially rooted in the Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale epics The Long Halloween and Dark Victory. But of course, as we all know, anything and everything good about Batman since the 60s TV show went off the air is completely to the credit of Frank Miller.
Christopher Nolan is arguably my favorite current working director. But there are a dozen other directors (or 'shepherds') who are better suited to revitalizing the big screen Superman franchise. Michael Bay, if he gets a good screenplay and a short leash, would be pitch-perfect for an insanely huge, thunderously patriotic ode to 'truth, justice, and the American way'. David Fincher would be great for a film that deals with the overwhelming responsibility of having godlike powers on a war-torn planet like ours. Kathryn Bigelow or Michael Mann could craft epics dealing with Clark Kent's heroics as his profession and how it shapes him as a man. Heck, Aaron Sorkin's rapid-fire dialogue, overwhelming sense of importance, and downright corny idealism would be a great match for the property. Point being, I've already seen Christopher Nolan's take on Batman. I'd much prefer to see someone else make Superman their own. Frankly, this was the same reason I wasn't thrilled when Bryan Singer jumped into Superman Returns. Singer's playground was (and now is again) the X-Men franchise. He should have let someone else make their mark with the Man of Steel. Same goes for Nolan.
Or, here's an even easier idea. You want a Superman movie that reboots the series, reestablishes the origin in a modern-day context and manages to include Lex Luthor AND the kind of epic-scope super heroics that have been missing of late? Mark Waid already wrote your movie back in 2004. It's called Superman: Birthright. Take that 314-page comic book, make it into a workable screenplay, hire the Michael Bay who made The Rock and call it a day. THAT's the Superman movie that everyone has been waiting for. Because the world doesn't really need a new Superman movie, but that doesn't meant we wouldn't want one. And a good Superman picture will be welcome with open arms.
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One of the many problems in Superman Returns was that the story was incredibly weak. An episode of Smallville was more interesting. There were two chances to explore something new - one with Clark's whole 5 years in space and two with Superman's kid. Both those areas were neglected and instead we pretty much got the Superman 1 movie all over again.
The one thing that Smallville can't give me is incredible, big budget action sequences. so that's what I want to see - a lot of them. When I think superman, that is what I think about. When I think about how much I loved Spider-man 1 & 2, it was the fun of the action sequences, you really felt like Spider-man enjoying that movie. We need something like that w/ Superman's flight. I don't want any soap opera nonsense that's been brought up, I deal with enough of that on smallville.
Lastly, I saw Birthright was thrown out as something to work off of but I totally disagree with that. I really didn't enjoy that story much for various reasons (one day I'll make a blog post on it on my site R1i.com). Ultimately, just didn't feel like much. Plus a lot of it is an origin story and we don't need that for Superman.
Now what mediocre writers fail to understand is that you don't make Superman interesting by depowering him or by making him "unique" or anything. You make him interesting by making his stories BIGGER. Big enough to warrant him in them. Geoff Johns understands this as does Grant Morrison. Which is why their Superman stuff is so good. You also don't toss his Silver age backstory just because it sounds dumb. You update it and remove the stupid parts. Like what Geoff Johns did in the Braniac saga. Sure corked bottle cities and pet space moneys are hokey but updating it right and you get something remarkable.
http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=13350. He's got his Star Trek franchise now to play in for as long as he so chooses.
Did you see Transformers 2, I know its a movie about car/robots but its also one of the most disrespectful adaptions ever made. They kept him on a leash for the first one but in the second one it was like "people are going to see this movie no matter what so I am going to do whatever I want" And he did. Absolutely horrible in every single way just like 90% of his movies.
I for one want to see what Superman would look like in the reality created for Nolan's Batman. I want a dark edgy Superman that is vulnerable and who has to deal with the real world implications of being a superhero.
The real question to ask is that did Nolan make Batman grim & gritty because that's his style, and it was a match made in heaven, or did Nolan make the movie the character deserved?
Because if the latter, then Nolan is a perfect choice to shepherd this project. And I have to think the man who so blew the comic book genre into a new stratosphere is smart enough to know that what he should bring to Superman is not a dark approach, but rather a respect and reverence for the character and its strengths. A patient, intelligent, dramatic take on what makes the character so enduring and important is exactly what I want from the next Superman movie. I'll take my chances that I'll get that from Nolan. I know for a fact I won't get that from Michael Bay.
It could very well be that Nolan (my favorite working director) and Goyer knew which classic and modern Batman stories to borrow in order to make a great Batman movie, and they knew how to properly distill all of the elements. But the fact that Nolan's Batman films fit so well into his filmography (Memento, The Prestige, Insomnia, etc) leads me to think (perhaps unfairly) that Nolan and Batman are just a great fit, just as Burton was a good choice for a more gothic version two decades prior. As for Bay (who wouldn't exactly be my first choice, but he's a name worth throwing out), he'd be a heck of a risk, but a Superman film with the scope of Transformers 2 and the quality of The Rock, the first Bad Boys (which was low-key and took its violence very seriously), and the first half of The Island would be something worth seeing one way or another.
Still, there is something to be said about trusting someone who has yet to lead you astray. I'll have a stronger idea of how I feel about this once Warner picks a director.
I would love to see a different director at the helm, if only so Nolan himself doesn't get caught between this and the new Batman, but I believe he can provide a good direction in which to go.
Suggesting that Michael Bay is the answer for ANY franchise (regardless of the quality of the screenplay)--much less a major one like Superman--is proof that you don't know what the heck you're talking about.
However, I will agree that Nolan on Superman is not a good idea, but for a different reason--having him work (in any capacity) on both Superman and Batman at virtually the same time will spread his talents too thin and result in two mediocre films.
Give Ol' Baldy a rest and get some of the other kids off the bench. They can't improve if you don't use them.
I remember when the Coen Brothers came out with the bad "Intolerable Cruelty" and then followed it up with the awful "Ladykillers"... the only thing that kept hope alive was, "Well they had to make those movies in order to make 'The Man Who Wasn't There' and 'O Brother Where Art Thou'." Or when Tim Burton made "Planet of the Apes" and I wondered what demon he had lost a fight with.
Either way, things turned out OK in the end, couple of crappy movies aside. Still, I don't like seeing the golden boys tarnished...