After this year's The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, and The Dark Knight Rises, Zack Snyder's Man of Steel is the next major superhero movie on deck. But will it be any good?

Obviously, it's impossible to know this far in advance, but the one thing the filmmakers have (arguably) nailed is the casting.

Man of Steel's General Zod, Michael Shannon, recently talked about Henry Cavill's take on Superman, the "edgy" tone of the film, and Zack Snyder's cinematic resemblance to master filmmaker Martin Scorsese.

On Cavill, Shannon said (courtesy of The Playlist):

"Henry is a fantastic Superman, he's got a little edge to him and he's smart, clever and I had fun working with him."

"Edge," eh? Perhaps this iteration of Superman is grittier and angrier than the one we saw in Superman Returns and the series of movies starring Christopher Reeve? This would jibe with the current comic book version, as written by Grant Morrison in Action Comics, who is a throwback to the Superman of the 1930's.

Henry Cavill is an Edgy Superman

On the actor's comparison between the style of director Zack Snyder and movie-making icon Martin Scorsese, Shannon stated:

"I think Zack is the master stylist, visually. I mean, he's up there with Scorsese, in my book, in terms of visual composition, orchestration, et cetera."

Can't help but notice that he qualified his comparison of Zack Snyder to Martin Scorsese several times over with an emphasis on what is arguably Snyder's strong suit - visuals. He's a "master stylist, visually" and "he's up there with Scorsese [...] in terms of visual composition."

Shannon also commented on the tone of Man of Steel, comparing it to Christopher Nolan's take on the Caped Crusader:

"['Man of Steel'] is edgy in a way like when Nolan took over the 'Batman' franchise."

It's anybody's guess as to exactly what Shannon thinks has made the Batman films so successful. Presenting an "edgy" superhero movie doesn't automatically translate into success (just look at Punisher: War Zone), so it'll be interesting to see how Snyder balances Superman (who most moviegoers perceive as being lighter in tone) with an "edgier" (hopefully not necessarily "darker") tone. To that point, Nolan's Batman films aren't really so much "edgy" (whatever that actually means) as they were "more realistic" than previous Batman films. Is Shannon implying that Man of Steel is going to be hyper-realistic in the way that Batman Begins and (especially) The Dark Knight were?

We'll just have to wait for the trailer to find out.

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Man of Steel hits theaters June 14th, 2013.

Source: The Playlist

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