Next Superman Going Dark Knight Route.

Off Topic
1

Looks like Superman is going to stop stalking Lois Lane and actually do some fucking ass whooping this time around.

http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1593406/20080822/story.jhtml?rsspartner=rssyahoo

"In over 70 years of shared comic history they’ve existed mostly as reluctant friends, memorably coming to blows on several occasions. The bottom line is that Superman doesn’t really like Batman at all, so it’s worth wondering how he’d feel now that he’s been saved by him.

Flush with the success of “The Dark Knight,” Warner Bros. has announced an ambitious slate of upcoming movies based on its DC Comics properties to be released within the next three years �?? notably a third Batman movie and a Superman reboot, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Announcement of the reboot �?? a complete reimagining along the lines of this year’s “The Incredible Hulk” �?? comes two years after director Bryan Singer failed to capture public imagination with a conflicted take on the Big Blue Boy Scout, and nearly two months after the gritty, nihilistic “The Dark Knight” opened to record-breaking numbers.

So how will Warner Bros. turn Superman around? By making him even darker, Warner Bros. Pictures Group President Jeff Robinov told the newspaper.

" ‘Superman’ didn’t quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to," Robinov said of Singer’s movie, which made just $215 million domestically.

“It didn’t position the character the way he needed to be positioned,” he continued. “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. We’re going to try to go dark to the extent that the character allows it.”

In addition to a “Batman 3” and a new “Superman,” Warner Bros. also plans to release two other comic book movies (not including “Watchmen”) by 2012.

Among the likely candidates for the big-screen treatment are the Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and, of course, the Green Arrow, whose film, “Super Max” takes place in a high-security prison for meta-humans.

Like rival Marvel Studios �?? who this year released the mega-successful “Iron Man” as well as “The Incredible Hulk” �?? Warner Bros. plans to release standalone films for all of its heroes with the ultimate goal of creating a super team-up, Robinov told the Journal.

“The Avengers,” a superhero consortium of Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, Ant-Man and Thor, will get a release in 2011.

DC’s analogue, “Justice League of America,” which had been slated to open next year, will instead wait until after the next four films."

2

I really liked the last Superman movie. I didn’t enjoy it as a movie, but was fascinated by all of the weird shit going on.

Did anybody else notice how they beat to death the Superman = Jesus motif?

3

No No NO NO NO.

Batman = dark

Superman = not dark

UGH.

4

[quote]Backlash79 wrote:
No No NO NO NO.

Superman = douche

Batman = not douche

UGH.[/quote]

Fixed.

5

God dammit why are they trying to follow what another movie did(dark knight) instead of trying to see what superman embodies.

Batman was always a dark antihero sort of character while superman has always been the white knight good two shoes whose story goes way beyond fighting super villains on tiny little earth.

Just make the movie with superman’s strengths in mind(epic, interplanetary/galactic, and bigger than earth.)

6

[quote]Backlash79 wrote:
No No NO NO NO.

Batman = dark

Superman = not dark

UGH.[/quote]

I’m glad to not be the only one thinking that. Damn! Leave it to Hollywood to fuck shit up.

7

The thing is, Superman Returns had some serious potential. I mean, they had Kevin Freaking Spacey and they managed to fuck that up!!! Kevin Freaking Spacey!!

He could have been a sick, demented, controlled psychopathic Lex Luthor and they made him into another “friendly uncle Lex” that Gene Hackman played back in the '70’s and '80’s. It had great potential, but they insisted on just making an updated Christopher Reeve version instead.

With that said, it doesn’t need to be a Dark, Gritty, Superman remake, it just needs to be serious, intense and well acted. Ditch Lois Lane, ditch Lex Luthor, and move on with another story.

8

WETF?! Since when has Superman not liked Batman? In EVERY instance of Superman/Batman being in the same book for more than three panels together, one, the other, or the narrator highlights there kinship, effective brotherhood, and shared admiration one for the other.

9

no, not in EVERY.

The Dark Knight Returns, also their relationship in Crisis on Infinite Earth.

10

Hell, most of 'em. Except for the Frank Miller stuff.

Look at the relaunchof Justice League (the Tornado’s Path). The whole Superman/Batman series.

And if they go dark with this, I’m stomping someone’s nuts. Superman is the American Christ; he’s the hope for what we could be.

Batman is the damaged child in the self-actualized man; the pinnacle of human achievement with the inability to move on from his childhood. The latter = uber-dark, the former = challenged, but hopeful to the bitter end.

11

I agree there, I was just pointing out the very strong use of EVERY.

12

meh… If it plays out the way I hope it does, everyone will be so enamored with The Watchmen there won’t be anyone even thinking about Superman.

13

Batman and Superman are practically opposites, and should remain that way.

14

All they have to do is make a live action version of the animated “Superman Doomsday” for as about as dark as Supes can get (See the DVD or catch it on Cartoon Network rerun)…but of course, that would be too practical a solution, never happen…

15

I liked Superman Returns. For being a throw back to the old Christopher Reeves movies I thought they did a great job and left the movie with many avenues to explore in the future. With that said I would really like to see a comic book Superman brought to the silver screen. Larger than life character with a nemesis that only Superman could stand against like Dark Side or Doomsday.

DC has been trying to make a darker Superman for years. The Jim Lee / Brian Azzarello “Man for Tomorrow” team up did a pretty good job showing how Superman bears the weight of the world more or less. Not to mention showing just how uber the Man of Steel is when he threatened to burn off the Earth’s atmosphere and reduce the planet to space dust.

The Superman and Justice League cartoon series both did a great tranformation of Superman from the big blue boyscout to a much more conflicted leader. The transformation was really highlighted when Superman and Captain Marvel were placed side by side.

Frank Millers “Dark Knight Returns” story doesn’t really mesh with the rest of the DC Universe. In the universe that story created the rivalry between Superman and Batman is similar to Captain America and Iron Man during the Civil War Saga.

16

[quote]Aggro wrote:
meh… If it plays out the way I hope it does, everyone will be so enamored with The Watchmen there won’t be anyone even thinking about Superman.

[/quote]

21st Century Fox is raising all kinds of legal hell with Watchmen right now. The little rat bastards waited until production was nearly completed too, which really pisses me off. Just because their movies didn’t do so good they’re looking to scrounge a pay off from Warner Bros by putting Watchmen in jeopardy.

17

I am not sure why people are hating this idea so much. For the current version of Batman hitting the big screen to mesh well with Superman, they HAVE to get rid of that late 1970’s version of Superman.

I HATED that Superman Returns movie. In fact, I really think the only people who liked it are the ones who haven’t followed that character much over the past 10 years. Even in Smallville (TV show) that character has grown a lot so presenting that cartoonish “I can’t believe it’s not Chris Reeves” version of him for the movie was actually a STEP BACK. Could they have made Lex Luthor any more ridiculous? The Smallville version of that character is so many levels above the character that Spacey played that it made me embarrassed that they forced a great actor into a role that fucking flat and juvenile.

There was no attempt at all in that movie to show who Clark Kent was. Kent is why Superman is not God. His upbringing…and the fact that deep down, he actually likes just being a farm boy (or simply human for that matter)…are what make him who he is. They didn’t fill out his psychology AT ALL in that last movie.

There is no way Bale’s Batman and that Superman could even stand in the same camera frame with each other and not look completely ill-placed.

I think some of you are stuck on the word “darker”. They NEED to make that character more realistic.

As far as Batman and Superman getting along, when they first meet (even in that new animated Batman series where they meet for the first time), there was a rivalry there. They respected each other, but Superman felt Batman was mostly irrelevant at first, preferring to handle most of it alone until he figured out how smart Batman actually was (In the series, Batman tracked Superman down to find out his real identity by using satellites to graph Superman’s flight patterns…showing a fondness for the Daily Planet and one distant apartment complex…because Superman saw under his mask and pointed out he was a rich kid)).

THAT is how it should be approached.

18

I would love to see a more “realistic,” if that word can be used for Superman, Kent/Superman exploration. I’m afraid they’re going to use the necessarily dark conventions of TDK to create a “dark, gritty” atmosphere for Superman.

It’s going to be the mothertruckin’ 90s all over again. (Not w/r/t the Superman boks, though The 90s had some of his best epic stories, as well as a string of just downright good stories)

19

In an old Justice League, where Mr. Miracle supposedly dies (they have the whole funeral, really well done actually), there’s a scene afterwards where Bats is sitting, brooding on the edge of some building, and Sups flies by to discuss some things. You can totally tell that Bats hates him.

Here’s a guy with all these amazing powers, and he’s still essentially a goody-goody sap whose overly high ideals have failed where Bats’ own ends-justify-the-means mentality would have been better suited. When bats isn’t especially friendly, Sups starts to say that he’s always thought of them as friends, but Bats cuts him off. He obviously views it differents, a marriage of convenience so to speak.

IN his eyes, with the criminal element out there, sure it’s good to have someone as powerful as Superman around, but if Batman had SUp’s powers, he probably would have wiped out the entire criminal element on his own by now -lol.

S

20

Yup Bats and Sups POV can not exist together and both of them know it. (edited to say- The Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth is my favorite graphic novel / comic and that Bats, the Dark Knight Frank Miller bats would have nothing to do with Superman, outside of using him for his own objective. Not a chance in hell Bats would trust someone so obviously unable to see the world as Bats needs it to be seen.)

Aside from that, Watchmen provide us with the best version of Superman in my opinion that exists. In my view, Superman would have no part of humanity or earth as it exists, he simply would not comprehend it, much the way that we can not comprehend life as an ant.

If I took a step back, I’d agree with Professor X above and state that Clark Kent is the reason why Superman is anything worth paying attention to. God is not interesting without a human point of view and if they were to make a “dark” Superman it would be a Clark Kent story, not a Superman saving the world from some guy w/o kryptonite.