Superman Reboots Instead of “Returns”

Reports have been back and forth about just where Warner Bros. plans to take Superman after Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns, a direct sequel to Richard Donner’s Superman II, but the official word from WB’s Jeff Robinov has confirmed suspicions that they’re just going to ignore it, much like Marvel did with Ang Lee’s Hulk movie, which was on par with Singer’s film in terms of audience reception.

“Superman [Returns] didn’t quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to. It didn’t position the character the way he needed to be positioned. Had Superman worked in 2006, we would have had a movie for Christmas of this year or 2009. But now the plan is just to reintroduce Superman without regard to a Batman and Superman movie at all.”

So that’s code for “no more Singer, no more Brandon Routh, no more ‘Superman as deadbeat dad.’ You just can’t go home again. It also means no Justice League movie. It looks as though they will be following the successful Marvel model of spinning off all the DC comics characters into their own movies (good luck with Wonder Woman and her ‘made from clay on an island of Greek Amazon women’ origin), although there is some concern that The Dark Knight’s success will make them think that ‘making everybody dark and brooding’ is the new way to be, which doesn’t fit Superman at all. The Superman/Batman dynamic is interesting because they are polar opposites. If they’re aping Marvel, they should look at Iron Man - that’s how you do an upbeat comic movie, although Clark Kent is certainly no Tony Stark.

There is also that old rumor that The Incredible Hulk director Louis Leterrier could be brought on to reboot Superman as well, but the last time DC swiped a Marvel director to reboot a franchise, well… that’s what put them in this mess to begin with.