CHAPTER 9:
THE DARK SUPERMAN
Bryan Singer's Superman Returns wasn't particularly well-recieved by fans and didn't do too well at the box office. But WB wasn't ready to give up. They announced a sequel: Superman Returns Again (Okay, they weren't going to call it that. I made it up. But I'm calling it that). They wanted Bryan Singer to come back, even if Singer wasn't 100% on board with making another Superman movie, as he wanted to direct an adaptation of The Mayor of Castro Street. They tried to get the film out by 2009 with most of the cast returning. Now. one of the biggest critisims of Returns was that it was boring and lacked action. So the writers decided to make this film action-packed. They even went as far as saying it would be Wrath of Kahn to Superman Returns's Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which is a movie also critizied as boring. Except Superman Returns wasn't 50% tracking shots of nothing. The writers wanted to inlcude other Kryptonians (probably Supergirl), Brainiac, and Bizzaro. Also, the Kryptonite island from the end of the last film would have sereved as a plot device.
This already sounds better than Superman Returns and I'm interested in seeing what it could have been. However, the reason Superman Returns Again never got made was the same reason X3 had to get a different director. Becuase Bryan Singer's heart wasn't in it. The production and filming had to be stopped so Singer could make the well-recieved Valkyire and he ended up leaving the project to make Jack the Giant Piece of Crap. Now WB could have gotten someone else to replace Singer. However, the writer's strike was happening at that point and Brandon Routh's contract expired, so they just decided it was time to let go of the Donner/Reeve Superman films and reboot Superman.
In June 2008, WB started their search for the perfect way to reboot Superman. So they listened to a few different pitches. One pitch. Grant Morrison pitched an idea that wasn't an adaptation of All-Star Superman, but a very similar idea. Mark Waid's pitch, however, was more similar to Superman: Birthright. Mark Millar and Matthew Vaughn planned a Superman trilogy that they claimed would be the Superman equivelent to Lord of the Rings, where one two-and-a-half-hour long film is released each year with the first film beginning the journey of Superman's life and the third film having Superman lose his powers as the Sun reaches Supernova.
However, WB rejected all of these pitches.
In 2008, after the release of The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan and David Goyer were in story discussions for a third Dark Knight film. Goyer told Nolan his idea of Superman in today's modern world. Nolan was so impressed with the idea that he pitched the idea to WB. They liked the idea and hired Nolan as produce and Goyer as writer.
Now the writer and studio saw this as the potential start as a shared DC movie universe, which Marvel was giving a shot at the time. Little did they know how well that would pay off. But I digress. Now all they needed was a great director. Goyer suggested Guimello Del Toro, who directed the Goyer-written Blade II. However, he turned it down to direct yet another Del Toro movie that would never get made. They also suggested Robert Zemeckis, but he turned it down. Then they suggested Ben Affleck, who was fresh off of The Town, but he said he didn't have enough blockbuster experience to take on the project. Also considered to direct were Duncan Jones, Darren Arronofsky, Johnthan Liebesman, Matt Reeves, and the late Tony Scott.
But then, in late 2010, WB found their director. The one man who was born to direct Superman. And this man is...
Okay, Zack Snyder made WB a lot of money with 300. And some money with Watchmen. So I assume that's why he got the job. I say "assume" because I've only seen one non-Superman film done by Zack Snyder and it was an animated movie about owls that nobody else saw.
However, as the movie was put into production, things weren't doing so well. First of all, Snyder was announced as direct about a month after the owls movie pictured above bombed at the box office. A few months later, his next film, Sucker Punch, was critically panned and also bombed at the box office. Therefore, making people skeptical about Snyder. Plus, DC wasn't doing so well themselves. The first Green Lantern trailer recieved nothing but hate from fans of the character, as well as a Wonder Woman TV pilot. Plus, when Green Lantern actually got released, it was also a critical and financial bomb (I mean, The Smurfs made more money that summer, domectically and worldwide. That's just sad.). However, fans still had hope as this was being written by the writer of Batman Begins. But, then again, he also wrote this:
So the fans had hope because Christopher Nolan was producing.
Now for casting. Brandon Routh expressed interest in reprising the role of Superman. Matthew Goode, Armie Hammer, Colin O'Donoghue, Matt Bomer, and Zac Efron were considered. Joe Maganiello was very close to getting the part, but he was committed to True Blood. So Henry Cavill, who auditioned for the role when Superman:Flyby was being made, got the role. Viggo Mortensen was wanted for General Zod, but the role went to Micheal Shannon. Dennis Quaid, Kurt Russell, Bruce Greenwood, and Micheal Behin were considered for Johnathan Kent. Sean Penn and Clive Owen were considered for Jor-El. Julianne Moore, Elisabeth Shue, and Jodie Foster were wanted for Martha Kent. By the way, here's something interesting. For the role of Zod's henchwoman, Faora, one of the actresses was considered was:
When the movie was released, it did pretty good at the box office. It broke the June opening weekend record and held onto it for two years until the release of Jurassic World. It's also currently the highest grossing Superman solo film. As for reception, it was rather mixed. Some liked the development of Superman, the visuals, the score, and the action sequences. Others panned the pacing, dialouge, and the long climax. The film divided comic book fans in two: those who liked it or those who hated it. So, what camp do I fall into? Well, I rewatched it a couple weeks ago and I really liked it. It wasn't perfect. I felt it was way too similar to Batman Begins and the climax goes on for a bit too long. However, I still enjoyed it.
After the weekend of the film's release, WB announced a sequel set for a 2015 release. However, at Comic Con that year, it turns out a certain DC character would appear in Man of Steel 2. This can only mean good things, right?
TO BE CONTINUED...