Cinema Science

Wow, this was fast. The Wall Street Journal that the studio is going to be reintroducing Superman. Superman Returns was only released 2 years ago and now they are going to act like it never even happened. Probably for the best, the "Returns" story line sort of pigeon holed the franchise and the whole thing was basically an homage to the first Richard Donner directed film. Adding a kid who may be Superman's and my have super powers was probably a bad idea too. I guess this will be similar to how Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk was a reboot of Ang Lee's Hulk. Here is what the article says:

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."

The article also talks about Warner Bros. adapting other DC properties over the new few years. Those projects will likely be about single characters at first, and will be darker much like The Dark Knight. Here is another problem, The Dark Knight is not successful because it is dark, it's successful because it's a damn good movie. The overall tone has nothing to do with it, but that is what fit with that story. I don't need to see a self conflicted Superman. Hell, they tried that with the first film and it didn't work. Just find the right tone for each individual story and then get talented filmmakers to tell those stories. That is The Dark Knight approach.

With "Batman vs. Superman" and "Justice League" stalled, Warner Bros. has quietly adopted Marvel's model of releasing a single film for each character, and then using those movies and their sequels to build up to a multicharacter film. "Along those lines, we have been developing every DC character that we own," Mr. Robinov says.

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.