Movie Chronicles » Superman: Man of Steel/Unleashed

Superman ‘Reboot’ Confirmed by Warner Bros. August 26th, 2008

After rumors and rum­blings in the Hol­ly­wood camp, WB Pres­i­dent Jeff Robi­nov has con­firmed with The Wall Street Jour­nal that Super­man will be under­go­ing a form of reboot to make it more brood­ing and dark:

Warner Bros. also put on hold plans for another movie star­ring mul­ti­ple super­heroes — known as “Bat­man vs. Super­man” — after the $215 mil­lion “Super­man Returns,” which had dis­ap­point­ing box-office returns, didn’t please exec­u­tives. “‘Super­man’ didn’t quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to,” says Mr. Robi­nov. “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,” he adds. “But now the plan is just to rein­tro­duce Super­man with­out regard to a Bat­man and Super­man movie at all.”

[…]

“Super­man [Returns] didn’t quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to,” said Robi­nov. “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.”

[…]

Like the recent Bat­man sequel — which has become the highest-grossing film of the year thus far — Mr. Robi­nov wants his next pack of super­hero movies to be bathed in the same brood­ing tone as “The Dark Knight.” Cre­atively, he sees explor­ing the evil side to char­ac­ters as the key to unlock­ing some of Warner Bros.’ DC prop­er­ties. “We’re going to try to go dark to the extent that the char­ac­ters allow it,” he says. That goes for the company’s Super­man fran­chise as well.

Comments 24 Responses to “Superman ‘Reboot’ Confirmed by Warner Bros.”

Keith September 2nd, 2008

Why?

Returns was fine!

They just don’t what to do


usf­cire September 2nd, 2008

Look I agree with you Keith. To make Super­man dark is a mis­take, the prob­lem is they are try­ing to com­pare two com­pletely dif­fer­ent comics. Bat­man is a vig­i­lante a ven­gence seeker of jus­tice, Super­man is not. Super­man is a bea­con of light, he is incor­rupt­ible to the extreme and he will risk every­thing to do what is right and will not toy with the crim­i­nals. Bat­man Begin­nings had Bat­man bounc­ing a guy think­ing he was plum­met­ing to his death, that isn’t what super­man does. yes he gets mad, yes he gets angry, but he always does what is right. Mak­ing Super­man dark would tar­nish the char­ac­ter and would make the fran­chise fall. I am in favor of the orig­i­nal intent for the next script, I want to see Dooms­day, I want to see the cliffhanger of super­man truly being dead, I want the orig­i­nal death of super­man series to come out and have the posers be born. I want to see Steel try to fill in and I want there to be a cyborg Super­man and I want there to be a Super­boy, prefer­ably his illig­iti­mate son intro­duced in the Returns movie.


Ceasar September 6th, 2008

This is a HUGE mis­take by Warner Bros. Bryan Singer already has an idea to make the next one a marked improve­ment over Super­man Returns. Returns was in no way a bad movie, and the few flaws it had, Singer already was pre­pared to address. I think Bryan Singer’s phoenom­i­nal track record should war­rant giv­ing him another crack at the Man of Steel.


beastly62 September 10th, 2008

This is unbe­lie­ve­able. Give me another Bryan Singer, Bran­don Routh duo. Singer has proven him­self with Xmen 1+2, and we all know what hap­pened in 3 when he left the fran­chise. Singer admits he had to estab­lish Superman’s rela­tion­ships and place in the world in Returns. He will bring the action next. To get rid of him would be like get­ting rid of a royal deli­ciously plump apple for your mediocre gro­cery store one. We the fans have to do some­thing. Their going to have two dif­fer­ent Batman’s adver­tised any­way when Jus­tice League comes out. Why not Super­man. They want to intro­duce a new guy in Jus­tice league, and make a fran­chise with him, Dark Knight stye. Super­man Returns was great because it was the sequel to Reeve’s Super­man II. They’re mak­ing $455 mil off a movie where Nolan started from the begin­ning, but now they want to do it for Super­man. What can we do as fans seriousely?


Jeremy September 23rd, 2008

I’m not totally sold on the idea that Singer is right for the Super­man fran­chise. But what I can’t believe is this stu­dio exec/moron wants to go “dark” with Super­man? What? Does he know the char­ac­ter at all? I agree with usf­cire 100%. Super­man is a bea­con of light in a dark world, not the other way around.


Dusty October 5th, 2008

I hope when they talk about going “dark” with Super­man, they are talk­ing about his ene­mies. I think there’s a lot of room to explore Lex Luthor’s dark­ness, etc. The prob­lem with the prior ver­sions of Super­man (includ­ing Returns) is that a campy vil­lain is hard to relate to. For Super­man to be 1) super and 2) incor­rupt­ible and 3) a sym­bol of hope, he needs to face a truly dark and evil adver­sary — his total oppo­site, almost his equal in strength. If, on the other hand, they make Super­man darker him­self… I won’t even watch the movie.

They need to keep Singer on the project, with those things in mind.


Xtrium October 16th, 2008

No more Lex Luthor plz. It was never believ­able to see Super­man fight­ing a human adver­sary. Bring in DOOMSDAY ! Let us see a hell of a real bloody fight with good plot line.


Super­ME­EEE October 22nd, 2008

AAHhh, don’t they know any­thing?!! Look Super­man is dif­fi­cult to do right because you can’t just throw a bunch of dark revenge­ful action in there. But you can make it heroic to the point the whole cult fol­low­ing (and every­one else) loves it!

I wanted bat­man to be dark, and it was a per­fect fit. We need super­man to be the ulti­mate hero, stronger, faster, smarter than the bad guys. I hope enough GOOD super­hero movies have been released since Returns that they’ll know how to do this movie correctly.


chris November 7th, 2008

I agree with those who dont want a reboot. i think that would be another mis­take by WB. i agree that Singer should stay on and give him another chance. he gave us two great x-men films. i liked how singer had Super­man Returns con­tinue from Super­man 2. now hear me out on this, but i still think a batman/superman team-up is pos­si­ble. if they can pair up iron­man and war machine in the iron­man 2, why not pair up bat­man and super­man? they are world’s finest. of-course it will need a good script and great direc­tor. my main idea is to take christo­pher reeve’s super­man uni­verse and have other heroe movies fol­low on the same path which could bring us to a jus­tice league film. i could think up a tril­ogy of a jus­tice league tril­ogy, espe­cially if the death and return of super­man story arc was the final jus­tice league film. just think about all the ani­mated series that Bruce W. Timm and his team came up with over the years and how they con­nected all those series. if WB can get thier hands on top rate direc­tors and actors, id say they could go the dis­tance. heck WB can even make up for Bat­man and Robin in a way by includ­ing tat fran­chise into the same con­tin­u­en­ity, know­ing how Metro­plis was men­tioned in Bat­man For­ever and super­man men­tioned by name in Batman&Robin. thats just my two cents. just think about it. you can get any­one to play bat­man, but super­man is dif­fer­ent story and hes not dark like bat­man is.


Hun November 10th, 2008

let TOM WELLING be the super­man in the Super­man 2( man of steeal)movie !!!! pls:)


wil­son November 14th, 2008

I don’t think the super­man returns movie was bad but I think they should not have used kryp­tonite in the movie, it didn’t impress me per­son­ally since they should have used other cre­ative ways to kill super­man, come on lex can’t not use the the same thing AGAIN besides it was used in the first movie. as for the reboot it is a BIG MISTAKE since bryan singer
promised more action in the sequel and super­man was going to fight a alien vil­lain, those bosses should let bryan singer con­tinue with the sequel and if they don’t like it then they can reboot it also never use kryp­tonite again in any super­man
movies or it will be the death of the franchise.


wil­son November 21st, 2008

I want to say again the reboot is a mis­take and let Bryan singer do the sequel mak­ing super­man dark is not good idea, Bryan singer said super­man was going fight a alien vil­lain in the next movie which I guess the story is going to be dark espe­cially this new vil­lain which I guess none other BRAINAIC.


Brown November 22nd, 2008

I agree that the next Super­man movie should start from scratch from Superman’s planet being destroyed to his jour­ney to becom­ing one of our great­est heroes. This film should have depth along with more actions and emo­tions. Super­man Returns was paste together by peo­ple who really didn’t know what they were doing. Come on, how would Lois know Super­man was the father of her son? He took her mem­o­ries of them being together in Super­man II away with a kiss. Bring an ene­mies with more fight.


tim December 1st, 2008

Returns was just fine. I loved it. A dark Super­man flick won’t work, Super­man is not a “dark” character.

@Brown
If you saw a kid who could throw a piano, who else could be the father???


Dusty December 1st, 2008

I really think the dif­fer­ence between a good comic book movie and a bad comic book movie is the vil­lain. You have to have the right guy to mea­sure the hero against. Super­man can’t really be SUPER if he isn’t really tested: men­tally, phys­i­cally, and emo­tion­ally. If Super­man is a sym­bol of hope than his oppo­nent needs to be capa­ble of mak­ing the audi­ence appre­ci­ate that.

If the movie ver­sion of Lex Luthor had been more like the Lex Luthor we get in Smal­l­ville, or in the ani­mated ver­sions, or in the comics, Lex might have worked as an on-screen arch neme­sis. But that’s not what we got. We got an under­ground liv­ing goof, with no back story, who sur­rounds him­self with fools.

I actu­ally think the movie ver­sion of Lex is redeemable, but they need to have a whole ori­gin flash­back sequence to remove the stain of camp from him and make him scary. It might not be a bad thing, too, if they cre­ated a story-line where he was redeemed in the public’s eyes, too (maybe he helps the gov­ern­ment fight an invad­ing alient?). I know Kevin Spacey is a capa­ble enough actor if you give him the mate­r­ial to work with. Lex Luthor, at his core, is like a cross between Han­ni­bal Lec­tor and Adolf Hitler, with an off the charts IQ. And he loathes Superman.

I’ve won­dered how Brainiac, Dooms­day, and Dark­seid would trans­late on-screen. I think it would be tricky.


Brown December 2nd, 2008

@Tim.… Hey retard,
Super­man Returns was too start were Super­man II left off. If you can remem­ber, at the end of Super­man II Clark kisses Lois and when this hap­pens his kiss takes her mem­o­ries of who Clark Kent really was away. My point is they shouldve never had the lit­tle boy in the movie period. Lois wouldve never known that she even slept with Super­man. Tim why dont you watch Super­man II all the way to the end before you throw your two cents in it because you dont know what your talk­ing about.


wil­son December 5th, 2008

me again and I’m still for the sequel and I sug­gest let Bryan do this thing besides they is going be action in this sequel and an alien vil­lain if u don’t believe me look at the first two x men movies and they were a hit, the reboot is designed for mak­ing super­man dark which is a mis­take come on every hero is different.


wil­son December 15th, 2008

A movie called pun­isher war zome was a flop in the box office after being rebooted so the super­man fran­chise is in dan­ger so does any­one know how to con­tact the wb pres­i­dent like his e mail address? maybe we can per­suade him to change his mind.


Tonie January 7th, 2009

Warner Bros. what are you think­ing? Super­man Returns was fine. I agree with the pre­vi­ous writ­ers you can’t com­pare Super­man with Bat­man. Bat­man is a char­ac­ter who’s haunted by his past and deci­sions. Super­men is a char­ac­ter who sym­bol­izes every­thing that is good and he allows us to hope for some­thing bet­ter. Had there been no Bat­man no one would have thought any­thing was wrong with the ticket sales, but the execs couldn’t help them­selves and had to com­pare them. If they’re afraid that the Super­man fran­chise will tank then mak­ing him dark will be the last nail in the cof­fin that will kill it. Super­man was fine the way it was. My fam­ily and friends along with myself loved Super­man Returns and left the the­atre ecsta­tic wait­ing for the sequel. It’s been 2 years and I haven’t seen a thing. Then I read this crap and was thor­oughly upset. This is why the indie busi­ness is boom­ing, because big stu­dio execs have no vision and are ruled by the almighty dol­lar. They’re afraid to take a risk and believe art is only good if it sells. Well Super­man Returns was good art. Warner Bros. don’t mess with a good thing.


wil­son January 16th, 2009

I agree with you Tonie super­man returns was not a flop in the box office but a suc­cess, let bryan singer do the sequel.


Tra­monte October 10th, 2009

Show­ing some love to this topic “new to this word­press”. I defi­antly agree with it also. If you really think about it than it all makes alot of sense


Peter Glass June 7th, 2010

I didn’t like the size of the costume’s S logo on the chest nor did I like the size of the red under­pants because the chest’s S logo was a scu­pled medal­lion it was too small nei­ther did I even like the red cape because it didn’t have a yel­low S logo which was on the belt instead the cape was meant to be lycra like the rest of the suit and the costume’s colours were also meant to stay bright red blue and yel­low, none of the other fans liked any of the changes to the Super­man cos­tume so Goyer if you’re lis­ten­ing to this change it back to the clas­sic ver­sion from the comic books. That explains why Super­man Returns wasn’t true to Richard Donner’s clas­sic movie which brought the late Christo­pher Reeve to overnight star­dom back in the late 1970s.


Peter Glass June 7th, 2010

The other rea­sons why Super­man Returns was a mas­sive dis­ap­point­ment are because: it had poor stunts good CGI a poor crew except for com­poser John Williams a poor script and a poor cast except for Mar­lon Brando’s per­for­mance as Jor-El so that also explains why Super­man Returns didn’t quite take off crit­i­cally com­mer­cially or financially.


Peter Glass June 8th, 2010

Warner Bros. If you’re lis­ten­ing to this you cer­tainly can’t make the Super­man fran­chise dark and brood­ing because Super­man doesn’t come from the exact same dark­ness as Bat­man Robin Spider-Man or even the Punisher.