Movie Chronicles » Superman: Man of Steel/Unleashed

Hollywood unsure about Superman Sequel August 20th, 2008

Vari­ety blog­ger Anne Thomp­son has pro­vided a much needed but brief update about the sta­tus of the rumored Man of Steel movie:

Fans have been clam­or­ing all over the web–and on this blog–for a com­plete reboot. And within the halls of Warner Bros. the same debate rages on. They too believe that the last movie didn’t break the mold and wound up in some kind of mid­dle limbo. Today I was told that it is a pri­or­ity at the stu­dio to find the right direc­tion and if Bryan Singer is will­ing to do that, fine, but if he gets in the way, he may not stay on the project. There are no writ­ers work­ing on a Super­man script now. The stu­dio wants to fig­ure it out. “It might be bet­ter to start from scratch,” one exec admitted.

We’ll keep you posted.

Would you pre­fer a Super­man started from scratch?

Comments 14 Responses to “Hollywood unsure about Superman Sequel”

richard vega August 21st, 2008

Dooms­day!!!! Dumb ass!!!


David August 22nd, 2008

YES!! YES!! YES!!
I would say I’m Super­mans biggest fan ; almost obsessed.
Chris Nolan has done some­thing to Bat­man that the world is in awe of. If only we could get him on a ‘re-invention’ of the Man of Steel. Chris Reeve did a great job, but that was then, this is now.
Tech­nol­ogy has improved and Super­man deserves much bet­ter, it should be the biggest, most impres­sive movie ever! after all he is arguably the great­est of all the super­heros.
Bring him up to date, make it real, explain the den­sity of his bones and skin, how it’s pos­si­ble for him to defy grav­ity.
Warner Bros. please!! SUPERMAN BEGINS 2010


Jenn September 2nd, 2008

I can’t believe my eyes. Rewrite Super­man as a dark and brood­ing soul? It works for Bat­man because he’s got issues. They’ve always taken that route with his char­ac­ter. I could have done with a dif­fer­ent Lois — one with some real chem­istry with Sup.
Maybe mak­ing the vil­lians darker, more 3-dimensional would make more sense.

A dark and brood­ing Super­man? Only if Dr. Melfi from the Sopra­nos is his shrink!


Wade H September 2nd, 2008

No they should stick with Bryan Singer’s Man of Steel for the time being. Let Singer and Routh have another chance. I think Super­man Returns was bril­liant I loved it and I saw it 6 times in the­atres I could not get enough. Reboot­ing the franchize as of right now would be the biggest mis­take hol­ly­wood could ever make.

SUPERMAN THE MAN OF STEEL IN 2009 or 2010.


beastly62 September 5th, 2008

A reboot of the Super­man fran­chise is the wrong way to go. Think­ing that Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” is a quick fix to all super­hero movies is arro­gant just beca­sue one made like that broke the records. That worked for Bat­man for a rea­son, and you made $455 mil in a week. OK. Take a breath. Let Singer get another one if he wants it, and let him do it his way. To make another Super­man that would be off-track from where the last one left off, will leave peo­ple won­der­ing what hap­pened even more than how they were when X-Men 3 (Colum­bia pics) came out. Singer directed “X-Men”, and “X-2.” He did so by intro­duc­ing the fran­chise first and took X1 very slowly. Singer fol­lowed it up with an awe­some and over-the-top expec­ta­tion sequel, leav­ing a third one open, and the peo­ple want­ing more. When a new direc­tor made “X-Men 3″, peo­ple were left won­der­ing what hap­pened to every­thing, where’s this, and where’s that. Singer has proven he is one of the best Super­hero movie direc­tors, and left after X-2 to make “Super­man Returns.” James Mars­den “Cyclops” even con­verted with him, thus hav­ing an early exit in “X-Men 3.” Con­tin­u­ing where “Super­man II” left off (which a good idea because the other Supe’s fell off after that one), “Returns,” Singer admit­ted, was only able to do so much with the first film and would be able to get right into it with the next. “Bat­man Begins” was very slow too. It was a great in-depth intro­duc­tion that encap­tured Batman’s dark­est and deep­est parts of his char­ac­ter, and con­not be re-done. I’m sure that the same WB from 2005’s movie, “Begins,” would even be sur­prised if they were told then, how much income “The Dark Knight” would end up rack­ing in. Nolan has proved to be the best Movie direc­tor yet with his full encap­ture­ment of The Dark Knight. And he did so by tak­ing it slowly first set­ting every­thing up, then just mak­ing every­thing ride in “The Dark Knight.” My point is you have to take it slow first. Singer needs another shot, it wouldn’t be wise not to give him one when we’ve already seen what he can do with sequels. He’s re-established Superman’s pos­tion with the world, and char­ac­ters, so next it’s crowd pleas­ing action. This is just one of those occa­sions where a change doesn’t have to be made. Depend­ing on whether or not you put the fran­chise in another director’s hands, the peo­ple will say, “This one was awe­some,” or “What hap­pened to the last one?”


TareX September 17th, 2008

A reboot? Are they out of their minds???

I am as big a fan of Super­man as it gets. A die-hard col­lec­tor since I was… a baby. I loved Super­man Returns. The only flaw was not cast­ing Rashida Jones as Lois Lane. Other than that, the movie was great. Some would say Super­boy was a bad call, but I think if he gets killed in the sequel, it will be a GREAT motive for Super­man, maybe explore his reven­gous dark side as well. The kid play­ing Super­boy as well was a bad cast­ing choice. There are a lot more charis­matic brunette kids that would have done a much bet­ter job.

So the film fails on 2/5 main char­ac­ter cast­ings. Other than that, it’s a great movie with great direc­tion, and a great storyline.

A reboot is sui­cide. They can change the tone of the movie, yeah. But start­ing from scratch is dis­as­trous by all means.

By the way, I was among those who though Bat­man Begins was a lot bet­ter than The Dark Knight.


van October 11th, 2008

i’m into super­man and less of a bat­man fan. the last super­man movie really didn’t hit my expec­ta­tion… though i was amazed by the good­looks of brandon…but thats it. i wasn’t sat­is­fied in his potrayal as our man of steel…sorry. the story itself was sad… lois with a new guy, super­man didn’t know he has a son… it made us feel sad and bad on how his life have become…the magic of the char­ac­ter of super­man was miss­ing. and lois who’s sup­posed to be a per­son with a very strong per­son­al­ity beecame a weak­ling!!! i would def­i­nitely want another super­man movie but i hope this time they give use the old for­mu­las that super­man was noted for. i love super­man!!! its tv series are really good lois and clark and smal­l­ville… i hope smal­l­ville wouldn’t end at sea­son 8.…cuz its gonna be verry sad for us super­man fans…we’ve got noth­ing to watch!!!


Aqua­So­laris October 19th, 2008

We all know the super­man story, why bother to keep remak­ing it, the story is for­ever repeat­ing itself.
If they decide to mix up char­ac­ters like Bat­man vs Super­man or a super hero world then then can change the char­ac­ters, make them more beefed up using super sized char­ac­ters like those in the comic books, as for the story so far i could not bare to see super­man remade, how many times do we have to be told the same story.
I think that char­ac­ters from the comic books should be intro­duced into the new films and made darker but not to start from scratch.


Jobi2371 October 23rd, 2008

Super­man Returns was an amaz­ing film! Not only did Bryan Singer rein­tro­duce Super­man in the most taste­ful way but Bran­don Routh is by far the best Super­man for this gen­er­a­tion and to recast him would be a very bad mis­take!!! He is absolutely per­fect for the part! A “Reboot” would be the stu­pid­est and biggest mis­take Warner Bros. could ever make! First of all, just like Christo­pher Nolan did with Bat­man Begins, Bryan Singer intro­duced Super­man to the world show­ing us who he is as a person…he showed more than just action, and stuff get­tin blown up…we’ve all seen that before. He gave Super­man “Heart & Soul”. That to me was the most impres­sive part of Superman’s char­ac­ter. Yes it was kinda slow, but so was Bat­man Begins. The Dark Knight was amaz­ing and so will Man of Steel…as long as Bryan Singer directs, and Bran­don Routh plays Superman…and it is con­tin­ued from Super­man Returns. I agree, the next one needs to have more action, and Super­man needs to show his “Angry” and “Aggres­sive” side. But, you can’t make him DARK! That’s not Super­man, that’s Bat­man. If Warner Bros. decides to reboot the fran­chise and release it, I can guar­an­tee I will not even make an attempt to go see it…AND I’M SURE I WON’T BE ALONE ON THAT ONE!!! I will be anx­iously wait­ing with excite­ment to see Bran­don Routh directed by Bryan Singer in Man of Steel in 2011!


Joe LeDos­quet October 26th, 2008

This is typ­i­cal Hol­ly­wood men­tal­ity. We, the view­ing pub­lic, are to igno­rant and uncul­tured to appre­ci­ate any­thing that is laden with sex, explo­sions, dra­matic fight scenes, and unwar­ranted angst. Nat­u­rally, the only way to sal­vage the Super­man film legacy is to redo it as “Super­man: The Dark Kryp­ton­ian Knight.” Is noth­ing sacred any­more? Do we have to run every won­der­ful thing through the Hol­ly­wood story proces­sor and strip away nuance, char­ac­ter devel­op­ment, sen­si­tive dia­logue, and great per­for­mance? Brian Singer’s take on Super­man was refresh­ing, imag­i­na­tive, and unabashedly true to the Richard Don­ner vision of the films. It was beau­ti­ful as a film and won­der­ful as a con­tin­u­a­tion of a beloved series. My mes­sage to WB and Leg­en­day: “LEAVE IT ALONE! Don’t sell out, story should be the pri­or­ity and the end goal.”


Spree December 16th, 2008

The biggest prob­lem with ‘returns’ was that Routh looks too much like Reeve. The gap between super­man and returns was too long, try­ing to con­vince us, they are the same peo­ple from Donner’s film just didnt work. We need to move from the Reeve imige.reboot


chris January 11th, 2009

look i think bran­don routh did a good job a super­man! no one can take the super­man image away from christo­pher reeve. i think that super­man returns was good but it lacked that edge that super­man is all about. what should hap­pen is to leave bran­don routh as super­man and get bryan singer and chris nolan togeather and do super­man some jus­tice. let’s just keep super­man away from some stu­pid idea that he should be all dark and not want­ing to be around the city and the peo­ple of metro­plis. that is not what super­man is about.


adam cable February 7th, 2009

Let it carry on. With Bran­don and Singer. But it has to make us believe. Tell the truth now.
Because we want to believe,we really do. Call “Super­man Returns” the dif­fi­cult first album,
because it had to do so many things. But it has posi­tioned things just fine. These
peo­ple are in our lives again, and we want to know how they are get­ting on.

Its film­mak­ers and those who have a love for their sub­ject­mat­ter that can only
do this jus­tice, and thats why you have to give Bryan the helm. And its a tough
job. But i believe, even though I had grown up between Reeve and Routh. Reeve
was amaz­ing and we loved him. And we need to be the same with Bran­don. But
he has to believe what he says in the films.This can­not be a van­ity project.

Believe in it. Come on. Returns did its best, and it can grow on you. Father and son.
Things are changed now, as we have. If you keep us as the audi­ence (those that fell
in love with super­man as a child, and still won­der if well see him one day), dont do a
George Lucas and just say its for the new gen­er­a­tion of kids. Its for us. Let the new
gen­er­a­tion have trans­form­ers. Or they can also enjoy super­man, with their fathers,
and we can tell them how much we loved the films when we were kids, with­out any cynicism.

Only the cold­est hearts can say Returns was not good enough. For­get bat­man. If you
want dark­ness, switch off your lights. If you want light, look up in the sky.


Daniel March 28th, 2009

Some­one, please tell me what is so damn dif­fi­cult about mak­ing a sequel to Super­man Returns??? Do I have to wait another 100years for a decent sequel to come out while Nolan’s Bat­man has already pro­gressed to the Bat­man Beyond sto­ry­line??? Sheesh.

I mean, c’mon, all you folks com­plain­ing about there not being enough shiny things in the first film to hold your short lit­tle atten­tion spans need to wake up! Super­man can’t be hurt, phys­i­cally, but S.R. was about CHARACTER–and that’s what made it a truly great film. It’s not try­ing to diss the hard­core fans of super­man by reward­ing their loy­alty by com­pletely dis­re­gard­ing the char­ac­ters we knew and loved.

Any­one who thinks a darker super­man is what we need, go lobby for another *odaw­ful Spawn movie or some­thing and leave this Amer­i­can Icon alone.