Leg­endary pic­tures had a page online stat­ing that one of their moviesin devel­op­ment was “Super­man Unleashed” with the fol­low­ing plot synopsis:

“Ramp­ing up the action of its esteemed pre­de­ces­sor, the sequel to ‘Super­man Returns’ promises to raise the stakes and take the audi­ence to heights of action that no other super­hero movie can achieve.”

This could just be a work­ing title, but it looks like the ‘Man of Steel’ name given to the Returns sequel is now unlikely. The page with the infor­ma­tion has since been removed.

Via /Film

/Film are report­ing that the AICN James McTeigue report was in fact false:

Sorry to get you guys all excited but I have just got­ten con­fir­ma­tion from two inde­pen­dent sources that the report was com­pletely false. I don’t know if an inter­view with James McTeigue actu­ally aired on RTL1 or not (I’m guess­ing not) but The Wachowski Broth­ers have def­i­nitely never had any talks with DC or Warner Bros to helm a Super­man film. This is confirmed.

AICN scooper Bal­lack has sur­mised some words of James McTeigue’s, a long time Wachowski collaborator.

- McTeigue con­firmed that Plas­tic Man was the next project in the pipeline for the Wachowski’s and he had been signed on to pro­vide Sec­ond Unit sup­port. Says the movie has been delayed indef­i­nitely due to a major shake up of projects at WB.

- Bryan Singer has refused to under­take a re-boot of the Super­man fran­chise and has left the Exec­u­tives at WB with no choice but to take a fresh cre­ative direction.

This is it.…

- He stated the Wachowski Broth­ers had been approached to re-boot the fran­chise as a tril­ogy and they are cur­rently review­ing their options as its like being asked to take the final play in a super­bowl final. Says if they do agree, he will likely either suc­cumb to pro­vid­ing sec­ond unit sup­port on the movie or will cham­pion the direc­tor­ship of Plas­tic Man — He started to gig­gle as he stated its like a young child for the Broth­ers and they wont give that up easily.

- Says, the very thought of the broth­ers mak­ing a super­man movie is unbe­liev­able as they have grown up in the world of comic books and they would be ideal for the project.

- Stated that Bryan Singer is look­ing to move on to Logan’s Run a movie to be pro­duced by Joel Silver.

What do you think about a Super­man movie helmed by the Wachowskis?

UGO have posted an inter­view with Super­man Returns direc­tor Bryan Singer, quizzing him on the progress of the Super­man: Man of Steel movie. To sur­mise, Bryan Singer is not involved in the talks around the Super­man sequel, but he is also not yet offi­cially ‘divorced’ from the Super­man franchise.

Jor­dan Hoff­man: Bryan, I have to ask you…..The Man of Steel! Superman!

Bryan Singer: I couldn’t – I wish I had an answer.

JH: I’m strap­ping you to a lie detec­tor right now.

BS: (laughs) Yeah?

JH: You feel that on your arm?

BS: Yeah, yeah.

JH: That’s me strap­ping a lie detec­tor to you.

BS: Okay.

JH: Tell me some­thing about Super­man and you and your rela­tion­ship together.

BS: I love Super­man and I can not tell you any­thing else. I, uh……

JH: Would you like to tell me some­thing else? But you sim­ply can’t?

BS: I can’t, I….no-no I wish I could! Yeah! I wish I could, but there’s noth­ing I have to tell. I’ve got a world tour (laughs) press tour on Valkyrie, a pre­mière in New York, uh –

JH: But there is talk of a new film, though. Are you offi­cially involved in this talk of the new film?

BS: I am not offi­cially involved in the talk, no.

JH: But when talk hap­pens they’ll call you.

BS: Well it’s, you know, I have rela­tion­ships with Warner Broth­ers and with the char­ac­ter and, and, and, and it’s just the way things work out.

JH: But you are not divorced from Super­man at this point.

BS: No.

JH: All right.

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.

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?

In an inter­view with Hol­ly­wood Reporter, Bran­don Routh says that the Jus­tice League movie is almost cer­tainly dead and buried, how­ever, he goes on to tell us that the Man of Steel script is in the works and that they plan to start early next year:

“It’s just ‘Man of Steel’ now, I know, they’re busy writ­ing a script and then I trust we’ll be start­ing next year, early next year. That’s my time­line anyway.”

Rumors are quickly cir­cu­lat­ing around the inter­net that the two stars of Super­man Returns — Super­man him­self, Bran­don Routh and direc­tor Bryan Singer, will not be return­ing for the sequel. The Vari­ety Blog explained why we may be unlikely to see Bryan Singer tak­ing part in the film:

Speak­ing of DC Comics pics, it is highly unlikely that Bryan Singer will return to shoot the next Super­man movie. (The direc­tor is fin­ish­ing up Tom Cruise’s Nazi film Valkyrie, and prep­ping The Mayor of Cas­tro Street).

This is a rumor, and we need to wait for con­fir­ma­tion from stu­dios that this is the case. For now we can hold our breath.

And for a seem­ingly dou­ble blow, Latino Review sug­gested for a moment that Bran­don Routh would also be out. How­ever, the ever faith­ful and reli­able Aint it Cool News entered into the fray to get some reli­able clo­sure on the issue:

I just got off the phone with a very high-ranking mole who is absolutely in a posi­tion to know what’s hap­pen­ing with this film, and he tells me that it is “absolutely false” that Bran­don Routh is out as Super­man for the stand-alone series.

The only thing that has been deter­mined is that JUSTICE LEAGUE will not fea­ture the actors from the other films. That’s it.

Right now, Routh is still Warner’s choice to return if they make another stand-alone SUPERMAN film, and that’s based on con­ver­sa­tions as recently as a few weeks ago.

Don’t believe this one, kids. Routh’s still the Man of Steel.

It seems like the whole crazy rumor orig­i­nated through rum­blings in the Jus­tice League movie camp.