Geek Entertainment News and Commentary

The Dark Kryptonian

Friday, August 22nd, 2008 at 1:01 pm by Jami

What do you do when one of your top two comic book characters obliterates the summer box office? Reboot the one that sucked!

*groan*

Warner Brothers is looking to emulate the success of The Dark Knight with a “reintroduction” of Superman. According to Warner Brothers Pictures Group President Jeff Robinov:

Superman 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.

Sorry sports fans, no Routh/Bale teamup any time soon. To make matters worse, they want their new Superman to be dark and brooding, two qualities that the studio feels made The Dark Knight a success. Sure, dark and brooding makes a lot of sense for a border line psychopath who dresses up as a flying mouse. But for Superman? Superman is a big red, white, and blue boyscout with good hair and a chiseled chin. Dark and brooding just doesn’t fit.

Superman Returns didn’t fail because it wasn’t super dark. It failed because it was super boring! The most super thing he did in the entire movie was save that airplane. The big evil plot was some kind of mega real estate deal. Come on! No one wants to see that. That’s a boring fucking movie!

Never liked Superman much anyway. But darkening him up is for shit sure the best way to end Superman’s film career. You know sometimes if it’s broke, leave it the hell alone.

[Via Superhero Hype]

7 Responses to “The Dark Kryptonian”

kindless
Posted: Aug 22nd, 2008 at 1:59 pm

Until superman takes off the stupid red and blue jumpsuit and those underwear, he will never, ever, be fucking dark. I have never liked superman for being a copout superhero with no weaknesses but a single rock that magically appeared on earth from billions of lightyears in space. This fucking rock that for some reason EVERYONE and their mother posses at the end of the day. Shitty superhero is shitty.

D-W
Posted: Aug 22nd, 2008 at 4:10 pm

Kinda sounds like they want to turn him into Hancock without the twist. I like Superman when I was a kind, but after awhile he invincibility became pretty boring. Add in his holier than thou attitude they gave him in the cartoons (I haven’t read any of the comics in ages so I don’t know if they are paralleling) and he really seemed like an over powered jerk. With all the other Superheroes Warner B. has rights to you would think they would pick someone new to exploit. Give me a Green Lantern, Wonder Woman or Flash movie.

Jack T Robyn
Posted: Aug 22nd, 2008 at 6:45 pm

If they want to see how Superman looks in a dark and brooding setting, The Dark Knight is exactly where they want to look.

The original Dark Knight, by Frank Miller. Particularly the centerfold introduction.
And Batman’s opinion of the fucker: “standing there like it’s all because of him.”

There is one role for Supes in a dark and gritty story, and it’s not the Protagonist

kal
Posted: Aug 22nd, 2008 at 9:31 pm

the thing that made super man was his bigger then life villans. lo-bo or brainiac will fit the bill really nice maybe bring some one in from opaclips(the hell planet with the ruler dark side) then you will have a movie then think about bringing in lex. but hey im a fan what the F%*@ do i know.

Wayne
Posted: Aug 23rd, 2008 at 10:26 am

I don’t have the cites, but if you recall before the Routhe Supes, they were talking that Supes wouldn’t fly, he would leap or teleport, he would use a gun, etc.

Care to guess which slush pile they’re going to pull from for this?

Archon Divinus
Posted: Aug 23rd, 2008 at 6:27 pm

Superman has plenty of weaknesses besides kryptonite. Leaving aside magic, his other major weakness is that he is a good person. That’s something that can be exploited by his enemies. A great example of this is in Hush when Batman uses this to defeat a Poison Ivy controlled Superman.

As for making Superman dark and edgy? Fuck that noise. The only thing stupider than trying to make Supes dark and edgy would be if they tried to make the Marvel Family dark and edgy (oops… too late). Superman is a great hero, and he can never be anything but a hero. And anti-heroes don’t fucking count.