That deluded fanatics won't accept this simple truth is understandable, but a studio head? It's as if all studio executives really were their own living caricatures.

All this talk of doing the whole DC-universe in the vein of Dark Knight is fine, if that by they mean "Respect the characters and situate them in a world in which their existence makes sense." (And no, that doesn't mean stripping all super-powered characters of their powers ... it means, okay, if Superman can fly ... imagine how society would react, what it would mean to the world.") But what sense does it make to say, "Dark Knight was a big blockbuster, so let's do ALL comic book films the same way ... get me Bill Keane of Family Circus on the phone!"

When a successful book adaptation of, say, "Moby Dick" is done ... what sense does it make to use that as a model for adapting the Harry Potter series?

Sure, maybe NOW they reject it - after they paid to see it. But here's the secret with that - don't show any of the shitty stuff you snuck into the movie in the trailers.

Other than that, I think Harry is absolutely correct.

Albeit I agree with the general sentiment: not EVERY hero should be given the dark, brooding treatment. Then again, what's worse: turning Wonder Woman into a crypto-feminist "serious" movie starring Ashley Judd, or dumbing down the source material to make the cynical Shrek audience laugh?

Will anyone really be confused why a new guy is playing Peter Parker, but they never showed him get bit by the spider?

Bond has been the most successfully long lasting franchise ever and they've been doing exactly that.

And now I read on JoBlo that they want to "reintroduce" Superman?!?! WHY??? Why can't we just have a NEW Superman story?!!?

it could be done, but who needs that?

finds out he's a dad, battles a fight fixer.

Please. No Dark Superman. I don't want him spouting poetry off some mountain top.

Bad move, DC. Bad move.

Bats: "Sausages" in total Bale Batman voice.

This post will probably only make sense to people in the uk

Perhaps Robinov deserves a little more credit than you give him. After all, he did help foster the making of two truly great Batman films. And as the Journal article points out, Christopher Nolan praises Robinov in helping to make these movies. Harry, you talk a good game about how "the key to all of these (super)heroes are their villains" but you fail to point out Robinov's unique contribution in developing the villains of both Batman films, especially the Joker.

and mcaulay culkin was a bastard in richy rich.

uh-uh, an alien suit with heat seams.

What Hollycrud writers have done since the emergence of artists like Aronofsky, Fincher and Nolan etc is copy them and they haven't snapped out of it.

They apply deep meaning and brooding characters to stories that don't need it and never had any in the first place.

You guys ever seen the Orange mobile phone ads in the cinema with with the idiot crew of film execs and producers? It's funny because they are most likely too true to reality.

Spider-man 3.... Problems... Well for starters since Kirsten Dunst's MJ is the whineyist mutha focker of all time. A crap MJ since day 1. Rather than people say that Venom was chucked in for us fanboys... Well to me it should have just been Venom and nobody else! A dark and violent Spider-man film. No frikkin skinny kid as Brock. The dancing scene was good and most of you guys didn't see that emo Peter Parker was portrayed as silly rather Raimi thinking it would have been cool.

A fucking dark Superman movie. Dark fucking Superman? I never thought I'd say this, but bring back Michael Bay or McG, because some over-the-top flag-waving ultra-patriotism might be the only thing that can save that franchise from its own fucking studio. How do these dumb fucks manage to keep breathing without instruction?!?!?!?

DUMB MOTHERFUCKERS!!!

Seriously. Hire socalactor NOW and make those movies!!! I'm sold.

Oh, and Damage-Inc - not to nitpick, but Supes isn't invulnerable. He can be hurt or killed by kryptonite, magic, and possibly prolonged lack of exposure to any sunlight. I think a half-decent scriptwriter has enough jeopardy there to work with... just don't let Bryan Singer anywhere near it!

I would also be interested to know what happened with the Steve Lisberger interview that was supposed to happen on a weekend.

Treat the characters with respect, give 'em a sense of grandeur, and make the movie as well as you can. That's all there is to it. The hero characters that have lasted (Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, Iron Man, etc etc etc) have done so because they happened to be constructed well from the ground up. When you adhere to their basic construction, the movies work. When you don't, they bomb.

Superman Returns sucked not because it wasn't dark enough. It sucked because that wasn't Superman. Superman's not some miserable, indecisive twerp who winds up in the hospital.

Get Patrick Warburton to play Superman and stick to the elemental core of the character. Ya gotta break the myth down and figure out what makes it work. Then execute. It ain't rocket science.

Actually, TDK failed in my mind because it presented Batman as being an indecisive bitch. Spider-Man's indecisive. That's his weakness and it works fine given the fact that Peter Parker is a nerdy teenager. Tony Stark's shortcomings were pretty well-represented in the Iron Man movie. Good work, Favreau. Good work, Downey, jr. Good work, Marvel. Batman's shortcoming is that he's TOO sure of himself. That makes him frighening. TDK woulda been way better if they'd gotten that right. Superman's weakness is a naive overconfidence in the American Dream, and in order -- that's what he represents, for better and for worse. Ay yi yi yi yi yi.

that includes some of these comic books they want to make into films, too, btw...

Sorry, but that's not why we didn't like the third Spidey movie... I guess you didn't get that either... Not being mean, just want to point out why...

Ok, 3rd Spidey movie was not good because Raimi got pressured to put in Venom. He wanted Sandman. Presonnaly the movie was great up until the whole Venom stroyline came to be. I mean the dancing and singing got everybody in the Theater going "WTF!?!?!" ok to put in some funny skits in Spidey, but the dark Peter going all Saturday Night on us in the streets, and then the whole scene at MJ's work place was just ridiculous. Raimi boomed on that one.

Then you have Harry going nuts and after Peter, you get a great storyline for the Sandman to come in and just to complicate the whole issue, hell Venom comes in.

They lost us when they tried putting in to many vilains in one movie for the whole movie, oh and let's not forget the Academy Award winning performance of Gwen Stacey, my god... Anyone wants to buy her an acting coach? I mean Ron Howard's girl? Damn, ask your dad for some tips! Maybe I'm being harsh, maybe it was the whole character who was built wrong (and let's face it way to late to introduce in the third movie!), maybe they also rushed this character for no freaking reason again just like the rest..

What I like about Batman 2 was that we get Scarecrow, but for a whole 5 minutes. And then that's it, he goes back to the Asylum and we know Batman continues to do his job. Of course Raimi can't do that 'cause he kills all the freaking bad guys in the first two movies, way to go...

What Raimi should've done is stand is ground , take the buy-out from Marvel/Sony and say "Later!". Tobey and the rest would've followed him which would've prompted a fan uproar and brought him back to do the third movie has he wanted. Sandman all the way.

So as far as I know and saw on many posts, people didn't hate the movie because Spidey went dark, no those scenes were the good ones (excludind the dancing and prancing mentionned above) but just not for this one. The whole Venom thing should've happened as a stand-alone movie, no other villains, no dancing, no rushing to get thru the next scene. How 'bout he would've finished the third movie with Spidey battling it out with Sandman, wins.. Cut outand back, we see him going to this meteorite that he saw crashed (always like the whoel Secret Wars origin better!), he goes in, gets to close.. Venom jumps at him.. BLacks out.. Waked up hanging upside down (as in the movie) with the black outfit on.. "Wo! What is this?!" End movie!

THis would've set up the next movie, fans would've freaked out about not seeing more, and would've just foamed at the mouth until Spidey 4 came out... Anyway, my two cents!

And it's probably been pointed out before, but isn't it funny how everybody lost on Singer directing Superman? WB's got a franchise they were trying to restart in limbo, Fox's X-Men is pretty much worthless now after a decent start, and we the fans, well we just got horrible product in the end.

I was not one of those people who thought TDK was the best film ever. It was good. Excellent, even. But it was WRONG on so many counts, and the first problem is that it was a Batman movie with about 15 minutes of Batman, who gets less than 1/4 of the lines in the movie. He was relegated to being a background character. BATMAN is not what made TDK a hit-- The Joker (a skewed version of him, no less) was the real ticket-seller.

I bet you could edit all Batman's scenes out of TDK and it would feel about the same.

Superman Returns was HORRIBLE. He lifts stuff, stalks Lois, acts completely wrong, and faces a "genius" villain whose whole plot is just fucking STUPID. On top of that, Superman looks like a member of a boy band.

Superman should be an older, authoritarian, square-jawed MAN. He should look at least 35 years old. Looking 40 wouldn't be a problem, though.

A twenty-something Superman is not commanding. He's not The Man Of Steel, but the lad of aluminium.

But back to my original point: D.C. and WB have whored out the D.C. comics characters to an incredible degree, allowing them to be watered down each time. Smallville sucks, and completely ignores D.C. history. Mortal Kombat vs. D.C. just reeks of stupidity. And need I remind you all that not too long before TDK and BB, there was Batman & Robin and two really lame non-Dini versions of the Batman in animation.

I think Timm & Dini are the only people in the world of moving pictures that 'get' the D.C. characters and treat them with the respect they deserve. Everyone else just splashes shitty versions of The Superfriends out there.

Hi Shia.

I agree, Green Lantern would almost have to be treated like a space fantasy similar to Star Wars. Maybe a little more grounded in reality, since Hal Jordan is from and protects Earth, but it needs to be on a massively cosmic scale.

Wonder Woman would HAVE to have a costume change. I know people complained about the X-men costumes in the movies, and it's debatable whether that worked (though the idea of a team actually matching makes sense). However, WW would have to change. The costume is ridiculous, and any real person wearing it looks silly. I cannot imagine any movie being taken seriously with her in that outfit.

Oh yeah, and the Superkid was one of the stupidest plot devices... well, ever.

However, Harry is right, keep dark heroes dark, and light heroes light. Then again, Kyle Rainer's girlfriend did get cut into pieces and shoved into the fridge... but if you go ALL dark, you end up as a self-parody, also bad.

From Wikipedia: "Darkseid's goal is to eliminate all free will from the universe and reshape it into his own image. To this end, he seeks to unravel the mysterious Anti-Life Equation, which will give him complete control over the thoughts and emotions of all living beings in the universe. While he has yet to obtain a working copy of the Anti-Life Equation, Darkseid has tried on several other occasions to achieve dominance of the universe through other methods. He has a special interest in Earth, as he believes humans possess collectively within their minds most, if not all, fragments of the Anti-Life Equation. Darkseid intends to probe the minds of every human in order to piece together the Equation. This has caused Darkseid to clash with that of many superheroes of the DC Universe, notably, the Kryptonian Superman. Darkseid works behind-the-scenes, using superpowered minions in his schemes to overthrow Earth."

Wow. Among other things, he wants to destroy free will. This is the best fucking Superman opponent I've ever heard of. Maybe Superman himself loses his free will for a time and becomes a minion? Because damn, that's scary to think about.

I agree with Harry. Darkseid is who I'd like to see.

I'll check out the final 2-part episode of Superman, the animated series.

I feel like I'm living in a world made of tissue paper. But you, you can take a punch, can't you big boy?

"Man, you can ride my tail ANYTIME!"

Marvel has a long-term plan of introducing individual heroes, culminating in a team-up film? Let's DO IT!

Dark, brooding real-world Batman and Watchmen made over a billion bucks? Let's do Superman, Shazam, Plastic Man and G'Nort the SAME WAY! It'll be a SMASH!

Until the morons in Hollywood seriously go back to the source materials and understand that each of these characters brings their own unique flavor to the mix, they'll simply continue to pump out crummy films that fail to excite the audiences and lose money hand over fist.

And for the last time — okay, maybe not last — HIRE BILLY ZANE to play Lex Luthor in any future Superman films!!! He needs the work and WE need a Lex Luthor we can RESPECT and believe is actually DANGEROUS! >:O

Of course, that might work better as a Justice League film, where you could show the effects of such an invasion on Gotham and other cities besides Metropolis, with the various heroes each defending a different area.

The Earth is in a perfect balance in regards to distance from the Sun and the Sun's size, in order to support life on the planet. Change either dynamic, even a little, and life on Earth wouldn't exist. We'd be an ice cube.

I hear everything.

I see everything.

I am faster than thought.

Stronger than your wildest imaginings.

I am all power.

All control.

And I'm all alone.

I think WB are going to have to bring in a HUGE name to direct this next reboot. and no we don't really want dark Superman. Harry's dead on. Do we need an origin movie again? Hmmm, I'm not sure. Big decisions to be made. Doing the origin for Batman again was the right decision. For Supes, just not sure.

Thank god they're not rushing into a JLA movie though.

ALL STAR SUPERMAN ALL STAR SUPERMAN ALL STAR SUPERMAN

Have the characters stylized. Go nuts with colors ...

CGI characters never die...age...or look obvious when the CG is introduced into the live mix.

PLUS

You can do the big Crises -type movies or *fingers crossed* Marvel/DC cross-overs.

Does anyone remember that Green Arrow: Super Max prison film? That sounded like a really interesting idea. What the hell happened with that?

I suppose if you hated the first film a reboot wouldn't bother you, but I actually liked it. Most people just thought Superman should have punched more stuff, so all you have to do is make Superman punch more stuff. You don't need a reboot to add more action.

Instead, Batman/Bruce Wayne is kind of an unpleasant guy to be around who's a phony to everyone he knows as Bruce Wayne and an out-of-control psychopath when he's Batman. (In other words, he's kind of just like Patrick Bateman of "American Psycho" with justice and order on his mind instead of mindless bloodshed.) His actions have motivations and they make sense -- he develops as a character and he's understandable, if not entirely relatable.

The villians also made sense, not in some contrived, shoe-horned way to make sure they conformed enough to the comic books to be recognizable, but rather in a "Huh, that actually DOES make sense" sort of way that doesn't depend on the comics as a backdrop to support all the defiance of logic and reality. So Crane is a prison psychologist who plays with drugs because he enjoys the power trip it gives him over big, beefy criminals who could easily overpower him. And Ras has delusions of cleansing humanity of all its corruption and disease because he's a fanatical idealogue a la Osama Bin Laden. And Joker is a sort of criminal's response to the breakdown in social order represented by Batman ... because once the police stop playing by the rules (by allowing a vigilante to run wild without Miranda rights or all that 'bullshit'), then the mob gets their own vigilatne to even the score.

The next Superman film, if it's going to follow in Nolan's footsteps, shouldn't worry on the one hand about shoe-horning in old, established characters from either the Donnor films or the comics. But on the other hand, it does need to consider how the society, how the city, how the PEOPLE would react in a believable manner to what was happening.

I mean, HOLY SHIT! A man can fly! He's an alien from another world! Aliens exist!!! Wouldn't this have at least a little bit of an impact on the city and the world besides folks wondering "Hey, when's that dude in the tights going to save me from this bank robber?" Gotham City REACTED to Batman in ways that were fascinating. I'd argue that Gotham City is the main character in the Dark Knight. That doesn't mean Metropolis should be the main character in a Superman sequel - whereas "Batman" is a sort of glorified crime drama in my eyes, "Superman" is more of a glorified love story, old-school Greek mythology style, of a god lost from another planet finding love with a mortal human.

Sure, I want to see a Brainiac character in the next film who's true to all the bad-assery that he's capable of being ... a TRUE threat to Metropolis (and maybe the human race as a whole). But I also want to see a Nolan-esque take that shows us (A) how the city reacts to these developments ... and (B) what it means to be a god in love with a mortal, forgetting for just a sec that this is SUPERMAN (tm) and LOIS LANE (tm) and instead considering them as two characters that need to make sense in their setting.

Someone at WB needs to read Grant Morrison's All-Star Superman.

Actually, I wish some filmmaker would take an in-depth look at the Superman psyche, because he's actually incredibly "dark", isolated and complex (read Kingdom Come).

The scene opens with Nazis landing on a beach on a Mediterranean island that they believe will give them a strategy advantage in Africa. The island is uncharted and appears to be uninhabited, but in fact results in a massive battle with Amazonians with superhuman strength and Greek-era weapondry. Think sword and horseback versus rifle and tank! It's '300' meets WWII. And the film ends with a particularly vicious Amazonian woman, having seen much of her island decimated, walking across a battle field strewn with bodies to find yet another invader on the horizon ... branding an American flag. Diana's mother grabs her shoulder before she has a chance to raise her sword in aggression and says to her, "I have a feeling these men are not the same, perhaps we should see what they want. blah blah blah, I'm sending you with them to be our emissary -- we are no longer isolated on our island, or whatever."

Really, anything that ultimately builds to a live-action NEW FRONTIER ... that's what I wouldn't mind seeing, if they're gong to go the whole "DC Universe" route.

I'm a supported of SR, but it kills me that they didn't follow up stronger on Lex Luthor's best line in the whole film, "Gods are people who fly around in tights and don't share their powers with the world." Something like that. THAT touched on the mythic purportions of Superman for me ... and that's where I'd see room for movie sequels.

And am I the only one who caught the parallel scenes between BB and SR? The "falling" scenes? Young Bruce Wayne falls down the well and finds himself surrounded by darkness and fear ... having to overcome it, whereas young Clark Kent falls through the roof of the barn and floats? Come on, that was DIRECT! Dark Knight did a perfect job in my mind of showing what happens when you confront that darkness ... the Superman movies still need to step up and show us what happens when you can fly instead.

Whoever threw out the CG idea. I've thought about that some too. Then they wouldn't have to worry about recasting the characters once they're not longer interested or get to old for the part. The hero would still look the same, they'd just need a diff voice actor, which wouldn't be AS big of a deal.

The red, white, and blue isn't the problem with Wonder Woman, it's the fact that runs around in a bathing suit basically, and the whole "star spangled panties" thing. You could keep the basic look of the cosume, but have the top come up around her shoulders and give her pants. That would be much easier to take seriously. Or the "armored look" idea works too, given her background.

I find it funny the first response is... go back to more Superman again. Sure, they will make some other characters now that they have the confidence based on Iron Man. I will see them and hope they are quality.

The things DC needs to remember are: no camp (there is a difference between humor and camp), take the material seriously and respect it as the "new mythology" it is, hire good writers and directors who care for the story. Chris Nolan has his brother Jonah and David Goyer - who care a lot about the character. Favreau cares a lot about Iron Man. Get good people. Not whoever's popular or cheapest or known for making big explosions.

Iron Man woke them up. TDK kicked their asses into gear. The next several years will be fun. :)

What about Capt America, is he DC? That storyline about him getting assassinated sounded pretty awesome.

I don't know how many of you out there would like this idea, but the whole Man of Steel mini-series by Byrne a few years back was for me a great re-invention of the character. Even had it's little moment of darkness in it when Clark is in Metropolis and catches the plane Lex built and Lois was inside (yes that's where Singer stole another idea to put in his fuckfest and messed it up!). When he returns to the farm, he's completely beaten up mentally from being hounded by hundreds of people that went to him!

I think going thru that story and making it happen would be the good choice.

Byrne didn't make him invulnerable, he had weaknesses, the cape did tear if pulled on it. The flying was explained as his will to fly off; he didn't have all of the ridiculous powers like the brainwash kiss; or other things that where used in the 50's thru the 80's. He was more human, more flawed.

I think the next movie should contain some of these aspects. Hell I'm even game of having Lex in it again, but has a puppet master, like the corporate big wig he is. Have Superman fight off Metallo, a creation of Lex to fight off Superman. Or even bring in Darkseid, Lex would stand up to him, Darkseid likes him, makes him his Lead Counsel for Earth, Superman comes in, battle ensues...

Less stupid freaking land ventures (even if he got millions illegally from a dying old woman, that would never stnad-up in court) and more manipulation on his part.

Singer clearly didn't get Superman, it's clear that he never actually bought more than three Superman comics or seen more than what was present in the 50's and 70's. He didn't get the character, the storyline. What makes him tick, what makes him stand-down.

I would rather have someone that came from the DC Comics background write this new story than have another Hollywood type moron make this movie.

Bad things start happening, and soon it's clear there's some sort of plot in motion that may just lead to the destruction of the human race. (maybe it's control of all nuclear weapons, or shutdown of all power, or release of nanobots, or something else.) Superman gets into some fights with monstrous threats (a giant robot, I suppose) and then tries to find the source of this attack. He questions Lex Luthor in prison, and Luthor laughs, saying it wasn't him, and that if it doesn't involve real estate he doesn't care (a nice self-deprecating joke for the fans), but he says it's closer to Superman than he thinks, and that maybe he'd better take a trip to Gotham City for some answers.

In Gotham, we get a short cameo from Batman as Superman brings him a piece of technology to analyze. Batman figures out that it's nanites combined with human tissue, and he gets a DNA sample from it. Shit happens, and eventually we find out that the Superkid is actually BRAINIAC, who implanted himself in Lois just prior to Superman leaving Earth (Maybe he was originally part of a computer that took half-cents from some company). Brainiac took the form of nanobots who "impregnated" Lois, borrowing tissue from her own body to make a humanoid body. Of course, just as we start to realize this, Batman gives Superman a call and explains it to us.

So the child-Brainiac, in an effort to speed up his growth, takes over the body of Lois' boyfriend, and then faces Superman, spouting CGI tentacles and controlling all sorts of computerized stuff around the world, causing disasters. In the end, Superman finds he can't destroy Brainiac and he's forced to banish Brainiac by hurling him into the void of deep space, where he cannot control anything again.

Lois is heartbroken, having lost both her "son" and her fiancee at once. Superman sets the world straight again, and comforts Lois.

Everything back to normal for the Superman universe. The end.

Just please, no more Brandon Routh. He looked awful in the role. Give us SuperMAN for once. Not Super twenty-something, or Superboy.

Use the McDuffie John Stewart, throw out the Parallax retcon (because no matter how you spin it, it is STILL a top 5 MOST HORRIBLE AND INTELLECTUALLY INSULTING RETCONS OF ALL TIME), and use Mongol and Sinestro as the main foils.

Sinestro should be an anti-hero more than a villain, so when he falls from grace and tries to redeem himself against Jordan and dies it becomes that more poignant.

http://tinyurl.com/53lxsl

QUOTE:

"We're having a lot of internal discussions on it," Horn says. "We haven't committed to any change at DC at this point," adding that both Warners and DC are committed to turning "the properties into viable movie product in an intelligent way so that we introduce them like planes on a runway. They have to be set up the right way and lined up the right way and all take off one at a time and fly safe and fly straight."

and

"To put it simply: the studio doesn't want to piss off the Comic-Con contingent.

"We're not off the notion of a Justice League," Robinov says. "There's a massive interest and knowledge in the comicbook industry and it takes time to sort of catch up and understand the characters and the history, where they've intersected with each other and what their worlds are. That's part of the education that we're going through.""