Amazing superhero movie news: Director Christopher Nolan, the guy who directed Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, is set to “mentor” a new Superman film, while working on the next Batman movie!
Nolan is extremely well respected in Hollywood, as well as beloved by nerds and fanboys, so this is pretty much win-win all around. It looks exceedingly unlikely that Bryan Singer or Brandon Routh will return, as this new Superman will not be a sequel to Superman Returns, but a new take on the Man of Steel. Now, I have already discussed at great length why I think a reboot is a dicey proposition, and why I love Superman Returns. But the fact of the matter is that the Last Son of Krypton is in excellent hands with Nolan, and hearing news that he will have his hand in a new Superman movie AND the inevitable follow-up to The Dark Knight is amazing news.
I have a small amount of fear that they will try to make Superman too dark, to match the formula that worked with Batman. And dark isn’t a dirty word, I just hope that they stay true to the character, and make things gritty just for the sake of making them gritty. But again, I have faith that Nolan will steer the ship in the right direction.
Oh, and PS – The Deadline Hollywood article I linked to appears to have been updated; when the story first broke, it made a reference to “four mediocre Christopher Reeve films.” That has since been amended to reflect the awesomeness of the first two movies.
And PPS – Yeah, I’m going to pretend I didn’t see that James blogged about this yesterday on his site…
2 users commented in " Nolan on Superman "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI have no hope that this will be a good movie, due largely to the fact that “Superman Returns” was, in my opinion, such an immense failure of everything a movie-let alone a Superman story-should be. I know you liked it, dude, but it’s a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes–you WANT to like it. I wanted to like it, too, but it was such a disaster that I couldn’t do the necessary fan-boy logic/patience switch to appreciate it any of it.
Unless Nolan is an Executive Producer, he’s not going to have any necessary pull. If he’s just an advisor, they can throw all his comments out the window. And of COURSE Hollywood wants Superman to be darker, they’ve wanted it since they tried to hand it to Tim Burton, and they believe it worked with The Dark Knight, though in that case, the character is inherently dark and works best in that milleau.
Superman is a character of light and hope and action, not skulking and moral debates. His stories should be told on a grand scale, and the one that I think would most-successfully translate to a feature would be the storyline from the Animated Series, where Brainiac comes to try and take over the Earth.
That story had everything–Supes discovering more about his past, weighing the dilemma of saving the only memories and vestiges of his Alien world or destroying the threat to his new adopted world being the main, great crux of the story. Brainiac is an alien intelligence that wanders the universe soaking up information about all the different worlds–a sort of Super Archeologist, or so we think. But it turns out he actually strips entire worlds of their culture and civilization before destroying them and taking what he likes best, and he’s here to do the same to Earth. Awesome, awesome story. Go watch it on the DVDs because although this would make an IDEAL feature, they’ll never make it. I just hope they reflect its sense of awe, epic-ness, fun, excitement, and danger.
You gotta have hope!
I have always found the dichotomy between Clark Kent and Superman to be fascinating – here’s a guy who is basically a G-d, who is capable of saving the world time and time again, but can’t hold down a normal relationship, and at times can’t even save the people he loves.
But, in all fairness, this theme has been explored before. We’ve seen the Superman-as-Jesus theme explored, and I’m comfortable with seeing another side of Supes.
I agree that it should be fun, but it should also be inspiring. The Batman films raised an interesting point in the sense that because of Batman’s appearance, the criminal world rises up to meet the challenge of this new hero. In a way, Superman should embody the opposite effect – when people see what Superman does, they should be inspired to pitch in themselves. It may be construed as corny or hokey, but again, Superman is a very different type of hero than Batman, or anyone else for that matter.
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