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Chris Nolan to Guide Superman Reboot

Friday, February 12th, 2010 at 11:19 am by Jamie

Classic Superman

Warner Bros is hoping that lightning can strike twice and is reportedly courting Chris Nolan to “mentor” the development of a Superman reboot. What the fuck does that mean?

My guess is that he’ll serve as executive producer, bring in his writing team, tap a director (it’s doubtful he’d be interested in directing), maybe offer up some casting advice. It’s clear that Warner Bros wants the Batman Begins/Dark Knight treatment for Superman, but honestly, I don’t see it. I mean yeah, the gritty, hardboiled treatment works very well for Batman because that’s where he comes from. His whole motivation for dressing up as a flying mouse stems from witnessing his parents murder in a Gotham alleyway. Gotham is every dark, dirty, drug infested alleyway of every city you have ever imagined. Darkness screams Batman.

Metropolis is no Gotham.

Whereas Gotham is the dark side, Metropolis is the bright side of every city. Metropolis is all skyscrapers and highways and clean air (how they manage that is a fucking miracle). Gotham is the despair of a city. Metropolis is the hope of a city. Superman’s origin does spring from death. And entire planet dies. But it’s an impersonal death. It happens lightyears away. Clark never witnesses the death of his home so it doesn’t really become the sole motivation for his crusade. Superman is the ultimate boyscout. To grit him up, to give him a hardboiled dark edge, that totally misses the point of Superman.

I know Warner Bros is expecting a darker take on Superman, but I hope Nolan recognizes the heart of the character and brings back hope to Superman. I don’t want to just see a super powered Batman. And give Brandon Routh a proper chance. Returns wasn’t a proper Superman.

Source: Deadline Hollywood

This entry was posted on Friday, February 12th, 2010 at 11:19 am and is filed under Comic Book Flicks, Comics, Movies, Remix, Rumors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

8 Responses to “Chris Nolan to Guide Superman Reboot”

  1. AvatarAmaniwolf
    Posted: Feb 12th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
    1

    I agree with you, about everything. The last Superman movie really didn’t give Brandon Routh a chance to flex his acting muscles, they basically had him, playing Christopher Reeve, playing Superman. He’s now on that show Chuck were he seems to be happy, since his contract for playing Superman was up.
    I hope they don’t try to make it dark and gritty, that would fail so completely. Superman has and will always mean hope. He’s the hero you want to see, coming to the rescue. People always hammer him as being a boyscout and such, but various writers have managed to work with that and make him something interesting. It isn’t the characters fault if he fails, it’s the writers. Superman is iconic, like Batman, Spiderman, Wonder Woman. People need to do the character justice.
  2. AvatarKevin
    Posted: Feb 12th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
    2

    Superman is lawful good while Batman is chaotic good. The former doesn’t mix as well with dark and gritty with someone as over powered as Superman.
  3. AvatarDavid
    Posted: Feb 12th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
    3

    Superman red son tapped into the darker side of supes , specially when he became the head of the Soviet union and started making “superman robots”; on the ohter hand he was always a boy scout and pretty much he was the same guy only playing for the reds. There is no way superman can be dark, is not in the character to be “dark and gritty” because he is hope, justice and the american way. the only way they can make it dark knightish is if they decide to go with the death of superman storyline, is brooding emoness for supes at its best.
  4. AvatarArchon
    Posted: Feb 12th, 2010 at 11:21 pm
    4

    Personally, I’ve always thought that Nolan’s Batman movies are highly overrated, so to see him be given the job of rebooting the Superman film franchise when both Grant Morrison and Mark Millar were interested is pretty disappointing. Grant Morison has proven that he knows how to write Superman, perhaps better than anybody else in the business today, in his All Star Superman. But no, Dark Knight did well, so let’s just recreate it with every other character.
  5. AvatarSBlue
    Posted: Feb 13th, 2010 at 1:15 am
    5

    Despite the fact that Superman is the quintessential boyscout, there have been a couple story arcs where they show that he is, in fact, prone to being angry or hurt. The first and third movies with Christopher Reeves showed that, the latter with Supes being the most hated as I could ever possibly remember doing so. Even so, there’s a breaking point that is obvious, but no one thinks about.

    Does anyone remember the graphic novel Kingdom? ANY of the comics where Lois or Jimmy Olsen are killed? I have no possible hopes that Hollywood can portray any of those events on the silver screen, but they’re all examples of Superman losing his cool, even if for a minute.

    Personally, I just want to see a movie where Superman is fighting someone on his own level. Where’s Doomsday? Darkseid? Hell… have him fight the critter from Cloverfield for all I care, just show him doing something more than saving humanity from itself.
  6. pingback pingback:
    Posted: Feb 13th, 2010 at 2:16 am
    6
    I’d like to thank Superman for use of his fortress | Dude LOL

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  7. AvatarYusaku777
    Posted: Feb 13th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
    7

    On the website where I first heard this news, they made a suggestion for how to do this correctly. Just turn “Superman: Birthright” into a movie script. Bam. There’s your reboot, your highly-condensed backstory that we already know, your Superman-vs-big-metal-spider moments, and best of all, an actual origin tale, showing HOW Superman came to be so trusted.
  8. AvatarLurklen
    Posted: Feb 13th, 2010 at 8:59 pm
    8

    That’s not bad idea Yusaku777, I don’t think it’s really the hard boiledness that made the Chris Nolan Batman films so great(or just not that). It was that instead of trying to put a comic book on screen they made a film about characters from a comic book. It felt like “hey this is what it might look like if Batman was real. It’s the same reason we all liked the first two X-men movies. Superman hasn’t had that quality, Superman Returns sort of had it but it lacked excitment and suspense.

    The reason I think superman hasn’t done as well (Excepting the Chris Reeve movies which are classics) is he hasn’t had a real villain. In the sense that Lex luthor’s not a very exciting villain sure he’s an arch nemesis but people want to see super man flex his impossible strength, they also want to see him struggle against an enemy that may just be stronger then the man of steel. And I think Routh did a good job and should get another shot.
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