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seriousficYou know, I think one of the problems with doing a Superman movie in the current superhero movie craze is that he's so well-known. With Iron Man or Green Lantern, you can just put the origin out there and they're obscure enough that audiences are surprised, while fans are happy to see the Iron Man Mark 1 suit on screen. With Superman, everyone knows his story, so the natural temptation is to deliver "not your daddy's Superman!" And between Tim Burton's Superman, J.J. Abrams' "Kryptonian kung-fu" script, and even Superman Returns, that's where everyone has failed. There always has to be a twist. And they might be right, but obviously, no one has found what that twist is yet.
But maybe Superman's pop culture significance is more like Star Trek. Think if someone tackled a movie with the same reverence/familiarity that J.J. Abrams did last year. Since everyone has Star Trek 101 down, the filmmakers just ran with it. So it was "Hey, look everyone, Scotty!" not "Hey, look everyone, Scotty's a gay Polynesian rentboy! EXTREME!" Similarly, instead of going "so there's this planet named Krypton, and it exploded, but there was this baby, here's him growing up and here's him deciding not to be a football player and here's him deciding not to be a research scientist," you just jump straight in and tell whatever story you want to tell.
Maybe instead of doing two-hour movies about why Superman is still relevant, people should just assume that a character who's currently being widely read about, has a TV show that's run for ten years, and who's getting a big-budget movie made about him is relevant, and go from there.
ETA: It's a shame Star Trek already did the time travel storyline, because doing the "Legion of Superheroes travel back in time to save a young Clark Kent from a future-villain" would be a great way to retell the origin fast while still telling a cool new story. You could do the Cliff Notes on his decision to become Superman, his falling-out with Lex, and set-up a Legion spin-off. Even Smallville knew that was a good story. Hell, take a note from Smallville and have Brainiac be the bad guy, then set up Brainiac 5 by having the LoS say they're going to reprogram what's left of him.
But maybe Superman's pop culture significance is more like Star Trek. Think if someone tackled a movie with the same reverence/familiarity that J.J. Abrams did last year. Since everyone has Star Trek 101 down, the filmmakers just ran with it. So it was "Hey, look everyone, Scotty!" not "Hey, look everyone, Scotty's a gay Polynesian rentboy! EXTREME!" Similarly, instead of going "so there's this planet named Krypton, and it exploded, but there was this baby, here's him growing up and here's him deciding not to be a football player and here's him deciding not to be a research scientist," you just jump straight in and tell whatever story you want to tell.
Maybe instead of doing two-hour movies about why Superman is still relevant, people should just assume that a character who's currently being widely read about, has a TV show that's run for ten years, and who's getting a big-budget movie made about him is relevant, and go from there.
ETA: It's a shame Star Trek already did the time travel storyline, because doing the "Legion of Superheroes travel back in time to save a young Clark Kent from a future-villain" would be a great way to retell the origin fast while still telling a cool new story. You could do the Cliff Notes on his decision to become Superman, his falling-out with Lex, and set-up a Legion spin-off. Even Smallville knew that was a good story. Hell, take a note from Smallville and have Brainiac be the bad guy, then set up Brainiac 5 by having the LoS say they're going to reprogram what's left of him.
