David Goyer to Write New Superman Movie

Superman Lives

By TK | Posted Under Trade News | Comments (19)

I honestly don’t know what to think about Superman movies anymore.

Look, here the thing. The original Christopher Reeves Superman film is wonderful and iconic and more than a little silly. The second one was far superior, though I wish that Donner had been able to fully realize his vision for it, which would have been a much darker film with fewer goofy Lex hijinks. The worst crime Hollywood ever committed regarding Luthor was making him some kind of bumbling, weaksauce evil-genius-wannabe. Lex Luthor is fucking evil, people. He is a bad, bad, bad man. Then there were a series of missteps and ideas that were either unrealized or just flat out silly — two more terrible sequels. That stupid Lois and Clark show. A rumor about a never-happening Wolfgang Peterson-directed Batman vs. Superman film. And who knows what the fuck is happening on “Smallville,” aka Superman 90210.

I actually rather enjoyed Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns, though it is admittedly a deeply flawed film. But it also almost destroyed the franchise — it cost too much money, didn’t earn nearly enough, the Bosworth casting was a disaster (although Spacey absolutely killed as Luthor), and it caused Warner Brothers to almost abandon the character altogether.

Well, the news has been bouncing around for a while that Warner is finally ready to try again. Initially, the rumor was the Christopher Nolan was sort of… coaching the project. Not writing, not directing, just sort of holding its hand. However, DC and Warners have since sort-of denied that rumor. Now, Latino Review has a source, who has been pretty reliable in the past, who is saying that David Goyer has been hired to write the script. Goyer is a well-known name in genre circles and among comic book geeks — he worked with Nolan on the Batman films, he wrote all three Blade films, and is the creator of the show “Flash Forward,” which I’ve never seen a single second of. But he’s a creative, interesting guy who clearly has a firm grasp on the comic book world. This is a good thing. Other news that LR has to report:

The film will be called Man of Steel, which I think is fucking awesome.
No Brandon Routh, which I’m neither happy nor sad about. He was fine, if unremarkable.
No Bryan Singer. Much as I love Singer for X-Men 1 and 2 and The Usual Suspects, I’m OK with this. Might as well start from scratch wholesale.

Now for the most important, and interesting part: It’s not an origin story, which is great news, since that means it’s not a reborquel™. It assumes, rightly so, that everyone knows the origin of Superman. Christ, it’s been around in popular culture for nearly 80 years now. It will have Lex Luthor in it. There will be a side story about the Daily Planet and how it’s struggling financially.

And, it will have Brainiac.

Fuck and yes. Brainiac is the alien android who is one of Superman’s best enemies, and has all kinds of possibilities (as long as it doesn’t involve that silly shrinking cities bit, because, you know, it’s dumb). The films desperately need a new villain — not necessarily instead of Luthor, but there needs to be a new antagonist. One of the things that made Superman II so great was the freshness of General Zod and company. I think that, handled properly, the addition of Brainiac is an excellent idea.

It’s still verrrrrry early to get our hopes up too far. But it seems that they might be on the right track, at least conceptually. Since clearly Batman vs. Superman is never gonna happen, as much as I would absolutely destroy my pants if it did, this may well be the next best thing.

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Comments

They should get Clancy Brown for Luthor and make the character come full circle.

Posted by: Snath at February 25, 2010 11:14 AM

Superman beat Batman every day. Unless Batman gets some Kryptonite. Which is the story with every Superman conflict.

Therefore, Superman is the most boring superhero EVER.

Posted by: Mr. Tusks at February 25, 2010 11:15 AM

“Smallville,” aka Superman 90210.
Hehe. I also like Kryptonite Creek.

Brainiac? Well, that's promising. Smallville's take on Brainiac was actually watchable, even if it did crib the T1000's physical properties from T2.
Of course, that could have had something to do with casting The Marsters. He gave good supervillain.

I agree, the shrinking cities were stupid, so they need to be left out. And yep, Spacey was a great Luthor.

Posted by: tarn at February 25, 2010 11:33 AM

My So-Called Life as a Guy Who Can Bench Press Planets."

Posted by: Tracer Bullet at February 25, 2010 12:10 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngbqB879_bc

Best clip ever.

Posted by: figgy at February 25, 2010 12:11 PM

Spacey did fine as Luthor, but I wasn't wowed by him or anything.

Smallville has actually gone from Superman 90210 to Lois and Clark 2.0, romantic hijinx and all.

I hope they treat Lois Lane as a supporting character at most. Too much focus has been on the love story of Supes and Lois and frankly, that love story is pretty boring. More interesting in the comics, but pretty boring on film and tv.

What saddens me is that Mark Millar supposedly had a killer idea for a new Superman trilogy, and I really wanted to see that.

Posted by: Turtle at February 25, 2010 12:27 PM

I love Lex Luthor. LOVE. HIM. But I am so tired of seeing him on the big and little screens. We get it. He's evil. He's EEEEEVVVVIIIIILLLLL! Hide your babies!

But oh man, he isn't so cool that he needs to be in every movie, tv show, cartoon and comic book. He's just one villain. I, for one, and extremelly excited to hear that someone finally pulled his or her head our of his or her ass (HOOYAA) and brought in another villain. And a cool one like Braniac to boot. Maybe next time we'll get some Parasite or Metallo (although we should all pray that we NEVER see a Mr. Mxyzptlk.) (And no, I'm such a dork I didn't even have to look up the spelling.)

Posted by: superasente at February 25, 2010 12:32 PM

Kevin Spacey fucking saved Superman Returns. I understand why Bryan Singer built a movie that is a direct acknowledgement of the Donner film, but it kept Singer from being Singer.

Then there's the fucking studio - who's stupid idea was it to cast the leads as people YOUNGER than the original stars when they made the first movie? Were we that desperate to pick the Smallville demographic? He also had to cast Routh, whom apparently was the only guy under 30 in Hollywood who could deadpan imitate Reeve (but without charisma), and Bosworth . . fucking Bosworth . . dog damn the idiot whom cast Katie fucking Bosworth.

Posted by: idiosynchronic at February 25, 2010 12:38 PM

Lois & Clark is great.

Posted by: Grafty at February 25, 2010 12:43 PM

Goyer seems to be the go-to guy for comic book movie scripts, but I'm still not sure he doesn't suck. Some of his scripts are good, some... not so much.

Posted by: Todd at February 25, 2010 12:55 PM

I think the Death of Superman and Reign of the Supermen story arcs would make an excellent pair or trilogy of movies. Part one would be the origin of Doomsday, his destruction of multiple heroes, and Superman's fatal fight with the beast. Part two would be the appearance of multiple Supermen (John Henry Irons [aka Steel], Hank Henshaw [aka Cyborg Superman], Superboy, and the Eradicator), the resurrection of Clark and his return as the true Superman. There's a lot to cover in there, so a better writer than me could probably plot it into a trilogy. Something this awesome would never happen though, because it involves MULTIPLE DC properties, among them Green Lantern and several superhero teams. The cost would be prohibitive. But if you want dark, there's plenty to be had in there.

That said, I'm excited about the possibilites for The Man of Steel. A big screen Brainiac could really be what the franchise needs.

Posted by: JustBill at February 25, 2010 1:57 PM

It's Christopher REEVE! No "s" on the end. Don't you guys look up ANYTHING?

Posted by: Ned at February 25, 2010 2:23 PM

I'm not so thrilled with Goyer as I once was. Yes, he's part of the Nolan Batman team but he's got Nolan directing and co-writing. Blade 2 got saved by Del Toro's visuals and Goyer then went and killed that with Blade 3 AKA Blade's Hard-On and Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Biel as Sidekicks.

And I think the problem with making Superman movies is that they keep remaking the damn same one -- with Superman doing some saving early in the movie before we settle into an hour and a half of watching Lex come up with some master plan while Clark tries desperately to tell Lois he's Superman and she keeps trying to be a reporter; only for her story to lead to Lex and for Superman to spend the last 15 minutes saving the day.

Change it up and maybe it won't appear so stale.

Posted by: Fredo at February 25, 2010 2:23 PM

All right. First off, superman is a big, dumb boy-scout, so any villain they cast needs to be smart as a foil. Brainiac is a good choice, but I second JustBill's suggestion of making "Death of Superman" and "Reign of the Supermen" the primary arcs of a story.

Start in medias res without the superman origin and move quickly to his death. Then the director can play with the theme of the loss of safety, with which many audience members will resonate.

then, with the multiple supermen, the story can be about people trying to find their way and supporting the right way to move on from the past.

When superman returns, if he returns, with all the other options, it would be more interesting to see if people would return to him and why or why not.

Finally, Batman would totally kick Superman's ass without help from Kryptonite, because Batman is way smarter than him. there are so many ways to do it. Hold Lois hostage, keep superman out of the sun, kick him in the nuts while he's asleep, etc.

Not to mention the fact that Joker would LOOOOVE to mess with Supe's head, and would absolutely break him, in that he's just a farm boy with an incredibly altruistic mindset.

Posted by: Johnny Von Awesome at February 25, 2010 3:11 PM

The great concept about Lex Luthor is how piddly and insignificant a mortal human being he is. He's not even in very good shape - a 30 year old in a Green Lantern Halloween costume could beat him up.

But I like the idea that a weak, fallable human being can be the greatest threat to Mr. Invincible time and time again. Sure, the moral roles are reversed, but there's something strangely satisfying about Luthor springing some kind of trap to knock Superman down a peg or two. That, and the one-dimensional nature of the first superhero makes Lex Luthor a villain I can almost root for.

Posted by: leftylad at February 25, 2010 4:01 PM

So Lex Luthor is back....*YAWN. Seriously, you would think Supes didn't fight anyone else. I mean this would be like if Batman fought the Joker every single time, or Doctor Who facing the Daleks and nobody else, or even Holmes always matching wits with Moriarty. A nemesis loses its punch if they never go away. Part of the whole "You haven't beaten me, I'll be back", works better if they actually GO AWAY to lick their wounds and come up with an even better plan later.

If they simply MUST have Luthor in the next couple of flicks, why not keep him as a minor character in the background? Stay with me. What if Brainiac was discovered by scientists employed by Luthor, and he was the one who unleashed it on Metropolis? What if Lex bankrolled the experiment that created the Parasite? What if he hired John Corben aka Metalo to take out Man of Steel in a mano e mano battle?

And what if Superman (and the audience) didn't know that Luthor & Lexcorp were behind it all until a couple movies later, and even then- it wasn't Superman that takes Lex out but rather Clark Kent creating an expose for the Daily Planet? Proving that he doesn't need to always be Superman to be heroic.

*Sigh Oh to be a wishful fanboy screenwriter.

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Posted by: Jim at February 26, 2010 1:21 AM

The weird thing about Superman is that for folks who don't know anything about comic books, Superman is probably the most well known comic book character, but they probably know less about Superman than any other comic book character because they spend so much time rehashing his origin story.

They need to quit focusing on his origin story and just move on.

Posted by: John W at February 26, 2010 10:32 AM

Superman Red Son

I want to see that as a movie.

It would do well as Star Trek did, familiar characters, new story.

Without too much fanboy revolt, and in this case, it is a well regarded story so it would be great.

Where is the suggestion box again?

Posted by: WhoWhatWhere at February 27, 2010 2:46 AM

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