DC and Warners may have won the latest bout in the ongoing Superman trials, but that doesn’t mean they plan to jump into action on a new Superman movie just yet. In a Variety report on Warners’ upcoming “tentpole” flicks for the next two years, the Man of Steel is notably missing. Alan Horn, head of the studio, even publicly stated that there won’t be another Superman until 2012 at the earliest.
The recently cast Green Lantern, starring Ryan Reynolds, is the only confirmed big budget DC title, due to hit theaters in sector 2814 on June 17, 2011. Warners “hopes” the willful hero will be joined in theaters that year by Director Chris Nolan’s third Batman film, the follow up to last year’s record setting Dark Knight, but Nolan has yet to even publicly decide the general direction, story, or villains for the surefire hit, whenever it does come.
As for what will be hopefully filling seats until the Kryptonian hero flies onto the big screen again, there are no shortage of potential box office smashers from the venerable hit maker, though they are at a slightly slower pace than previous years, due to the recent Writer’s Guild strike and the slowing economy. Three Harry Potter films, starting with this Wednesday’s Half-Blood Prince, are on their way, joined by two Hobbit movies, Sherlock Holmes, and Clash of the Titans.
July 13th, 2009 at 6:42 am
They have to get Superman on film again and do it right. I didn’t mind Superman Returns because I see it as an end to the Christopher Reeve Superman but theres no reason that it couldn’t be a summer blockbuster if done properly.
July 13th, 2009 at 6:58 am
Given that Spider-Man 4 and Captain America also are slotted for that summer, does DC/WB feel they need another superhero movie?
July 13th, 2009 at 10:27 am
I hope the eventually settle on a tone and story/themes for Superman. He’s the daddy of the genre and he needs to be given back to people on his own merits instead of in mimicry of “dark” franchises.
July 13th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Why the need to redo Superman? Ignore Superman 3,4 and Returns, and accept 1 and 2 as canon. They perfectly compliment one another and have a satifying conclusion. Personally I think you can only retell his origins so many times before people start thinking, “What’s the point? I’ve already seen it.”
July 13th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Doubt we’ll see Batman3 until 2012 at the earliest, Inception isn’t out until next year, and Warner would be foolish to rush the sequel if they want a repeat of TDK.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
I was totally bored with Superman Returns. Brandon Routh was completely miscasted. He reminds me more of Superboy than Superman and the story to me with Lex Luthor played by Kevin Spacey seemed like a remake of the first Superman flick with Chris Reeves. At least Spacey was brave enough to go bald for the character. Gene Hackman refused to do so in the first two movies.
July 13th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
“Why the need to redo Superman? Ignore Superman 3,4 and Returns, and accept 1 and 2 as canon. They perfectly compliment one another and have a satifying conclusion.”
I disagree… Accepting Supes: The Movie and S2 as “canon” is exactly where SR went horribly wrong.
Those movies were fun as a kid, I guess. But I watch them now and I can barely do it. Chris Reeve was wonderful, but that script’s take on Supes so outdated. And that’s NOT the Luthor I want to see. I want the ruthless military-industrialist businessman we’ve had in the comics since the Byrne reboot, and that the animated shows have also taken as their canon.
I want a big sci-fi/action epic that’s worthy of the character. No more real estate schemes, no more battling a villain who’s little more than small time con-artist/thief, no more having his powers stripped away by kryptonite or other means just to get beaten up by mere powerless humans, no more having someone fish that same depowered Supes out of the water before he drowns. Screw all of that!
Oh, and ditch the kid.
“Personally I think you can only retell his origins so many times before people start thinking, “What’s the point? I’ve already seen it.”
As far as movies go, it’s only been told once. And it was poorly done (at least the Krypton stuff was)… Start over and do it from scratch. Give us a more interesting, more colorful, less bland and dull Krypton. No reboot has to dwell on the origin, but you need to at least acknowledge it in a reboot.
July 13th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
The definitely shouldn’t try to rush Nolan on the nesxt Bat-movie. It won’t be as big as TDK was, as that was lightning in a bottle, but it can still be huge. Give him all the time he wants. Definitely make it a summer film, so don’t put it up against GL.
And when did GL become a summer 2011 flick? Wasn’t this supposed to be coming out Xmas 2010? I can appreciate WB/DC wanting to get things right, but Marvel’s sure on more of a fast track. Hard to say how Marvel will do outside of Iron Man, but they still seem to have the edge in their favor.
July 18th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
This is what I think will happen
The Siegels and Shusters will sell or license Superman to Marvel Entertainment.
Marvel will want the superman character because of the license fees they could charge Time Warner/DC if they wanted to continue using Superman in the DC universe.
Most of Marvel’s income is derived from licensing of their characters.
They could not use Superman in the Marvel universe because Superman would not come with all his supporting characters, heat vision, flying abilities as well as much of his rich history.
Also if Marvel got the Superman character it would hurt their competition and it would be safe to assume the byproduct would be an increase in Marvel’s revenue.
Warner Brothers is extremely attached to Superman because of the money the Superman character generates and since Time Warner will not want a court battle with Marvel Entertainment or humiliate themselves by having to pay license fees to their competitor for the use of their own iconic charter member superman they will just acquire Marvel Entertainment.
Marvel will agree to this if Time Warner agrees to keep Marvel comics and DC comics separate divisions for a specific amount of time, lets say 5 to 10 years.
This way everyone is happy. And the money keeps flowing
in.
http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.arts.comics.marvel.universe/2009-01/msg00056.html
August 5th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Superman was my favorite superhero for a long time. And my favorite movie too, for that matter.