Warner Bros. Loses Superman’s Past

"HO NO DC/WB LOST RIGHTS SUPERMAN'S ORIGIN?! GOD HELP THEM THEY ARE SO SCREWED!"-snicker- Oh thank God they can't do another origin story or as long and as drawn out but will never be as good as the first one. Haha. Looks like time to get creative you "genious" movie scripters you.

I may be a little late to weigh in on this but it's news to me. I enjoyed the original movie with Reeve as Superman. That will be my all time favorite adaptation of Big Blue. Like you don't mess with Texas, You shouldn't mess with the "S" either. Especially not in the way Singer'd done. Yes I think Routh shouldn't be canned totally cast him as an extra maybe? -Lol, jk- However, I think the kid who played the infant Kal-El in Superman 1, should be given a shot at playing Superman/Clark. He's actually got blue eyes and looks the type. All they'd need do is let his hair grow some, style it with a right way S curl and dye it black. (Superman having brown hair doesn't work, not for me at least and I have brown hair)
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www....

(hopefully you remember his more chubby cheeked face from when he played lil Kal saved Pa Kent from being smushed after they discovered him.) Another reason I'd pick him is because he LOOKS age appropriate for the part! Now a second choice to Aaron Smolinski is Tom Welling. My choices for either of them is that they both with natural blue eyes. (I am NOT a fan of contacts being used to achieve blue eyes especially when they look so dark and brown in bad lighting. It just looks like a massive "load" like that Batman and Robin movie from the late 1990's) I'm aiming for quality guys.

With that said and if Luthor which I'd dread,is cast as the main bad guy I think someone with more beef than brains should play him like... Vin Disle anyone? Not a meat head but someone who could be smart and tough. More than just a guy behind the science but actually thug-like but intimidating. However, I want someone who can give Superman a run for his money or his tights at least. Yeah Luthor can do that but he has been over done and No Gene "Hack"man did not perfect Luthor. Kevin Spacey did that thank you very much. Villains other than Mr. L. Toyman I think would be too timid but maybe as a secondary in tag team effort. I'd probably cast Robin Williams or Jim Carry if they'd sign up or need the money bad enough. -gut busts from intense side splitting laughter-
But seriously, Brainiac, Mongul, DARKSIED, and any other major big bad villains should be considered by filmmakers.

To love interest, GET RID OF KATE BOSWORTH, AS LOIS LANE!!! SHE PRACTICALLY BENT OVER FOR LUTHOR AND EVERYONE ELSE. There was nothing resembling other incarnations of the Daiy PLanet's star hard nosed spunky reporter in high heels. They had the high heels right at least. I agree with most people on the kid too. No way unhh unhh. Made Lois too wimpy. Bosworth was better in Blue Crush than as Lois Lane. If Margot Kidder wasn't so damn old or Terri Hatcher was interested they should have gone with either of them. Oh Erica Durance. The chick playing Lois on Smallville. I think the guy who played Olson did alright though. He wasn't all bad but there's gotta be someone better off the top of my head I really can't think of any. Maybe the guy playing him Smallville, X-Men's former Iceman actor. Too bad the guy who played Perry White on Lois and Clark isn't around any more. I thought he did a great job. A much better one than Frank Langella in SR. Or hey maybe give Steve Martin a chance to play a serious role and cast him as White?

Moving on, you know what would be great? Is if they figure out how like in current Marvel Movies (Before Marvel Sold out to Micky Mouse that is. God I see Spidy and Micky fighting together and it makes me wanna hurl.) I digress but, if DC/WB could do in there movies like in the Marvel movies forming the Avengers deal. They could start laying the bedrock for a JLA movie. Like at the end of this Movie show Supes Heading to Gotham at the end of his flick after taking out his villains and saving Lois etc. Maybe set the movie up into 3 chapters or something. Possibly 3 seperate movies. I donno but it would be just fantastic if they did something new and exciting to reinvigorate the franchise. To resurrect it from the dead. It's been 30 years since a decent film for the Big Blue Boyscout. He's long over due. And to those who think DC should abandon the Superman Film Franchise, think about what Comics or Comic Inspired movies would be if Superman: The Movie had never come about. Most likely there'd be no Batman, or Spider-man, etc. Yes I'd kill to see a good Flash, Green Lantern, or W.W. movie. But like in the beginning of DC Comics I think A retooled Superman movie should be the flagship paving the way!

Have a great and blessed weekend y'all.

I haven’t a clue why anyone would see this as the basis for a campaign of hate against the families of Siegel and Shuster - they are only finally getting their due, after all, and about time. It will surely also establish precedents for other creators to be able to pursue a similar path, and that can only be good - if the talent can be sure that they will benefit from good work, then that lets them concentrate on telling the stories and making the pictures we love.

As Rix says, it will now just be a question of WB getting permissions to use whatever elements of the character they need -they could license them, or even buy out the rights to get them back in house (a bit like the Bond people buying up the Thunderball/ Never Say Never/ Warhead2000 James Bond stuff).

As to a new movie - either spin it out of “Smallville”, which they should have done instead of the abysmal “Supes Returns”, or make a period-y movie in a streamline-art deco world, sort of like the Batman TAS/ Superman cartoon adventures world, and move away from the Christopher Reeve legacy…

Aye! A origin story would be meaningless, mostly because it was perfected in the first Supe-movie, and it's still being done in Smallville.

What was so perfect about Superman 2, imho, was that it had everything. You had 3 super-villains with the same strenght as Superman, which was a good excuse for a lot of action, but you also had the very essense of rotten human selfishness, greed and evilness in form of Lex Luthor, which shows how that it's not just muscles Superman has to fight to bring justice to the world.

And we also also had the very down to earth and fun love-story between Lois and Clark, which almost could have been a movie on it's own. It's the only movie that really shows how much Superman was in love with Lois, and how much he was willing to give up.

I know most people like no.1 more, but I honestly think the best thing they could do is to do something in the same vein as no. 2 ('cause no. 1 was mostly about the beginning, which only can be done once). Also, I think it's better for the Superman movies to take more of a Spider-Man approach than Batman Begins, 'cause both the original Superman and Spider-Man had a lot more humour.

OK. Some reflection came my way, and you know, I was thinking, maybe they don't HAVE to do the whole origin thing in the next film to get people ON BOARD with Superman. I wuldn't do a sequel to Returns, but I'd have Supes at the beginning of his career, like maybe it's his second month in Metropolis and go from there. Just tell a great, action packed story about corrupttion in Metropolois and Supes figuring out how things work and that Luthor (SUPPORTING CHARACTER!!!) runs everything. Throw Brainiace in as the big bad, focus on the reporter dynamic (very real world like, have the filmakers figure out what an actual reporter does, like have the Daily Planet be the only honest, non Luthor owned paper and have the reporters being bribed/threatened to not print/follow certain stories, that could be very interesting) and you got a movie. :-)

Because the first Batman film didn't do much of an "origin" at all, in fact, we didn't get a "full origin treatment" for Batman until Begins, and several of the Batman films were very successful, people really liked the first film despite being mostly familiar with only the Batman tv show (i e knowing nothing about Batman). I'm speaking of course about the non comic book fans.

Anyone else agree?

I don't see the problem. All WB have to do is pay good money to use whatever ideas they want. If the family are happy with it they'll just accept a payment and 'license' the origins (or whatever ideas they own).

TJ, you make a lot of great points. I think the Superman/Lois piece is so very essential in keeping us women interested. The butt kicking is a bonus!

Honestly, I love how he is always so conflicted about her and how to live his life and how he is never able to tell her who he really is, it's such a great love story. They need to give Routh another shot and either get a new Lois, or make her performance much better this time, I think she has it in her and maybe being a bit older now would help her.

Superman returns wasn't the return of Superman at all! It was a boring movie and a sad story about a sissy loser with super-powers.

Christopher Reeves' Superman was a gentleman, but also knew how to kick butt. And even after 30 years, it's still incredibly satisfying to see Superman 2, when he gets all his powers back and gets his and Earth's revenge.

That's the kind of Superman I want to see. Someone kicking butt in the name of justice! Not an endless mess about how he has screwed up his life. The endless love between Superman and Lois is an interesting side story, and makes room for both romance and comedy, but let's face it; it's the butt-kicking we love.

A good Superman film is easy to make: Clark Kent is funny and clumsy, and madly in love with Lois. Lois is madly in love with Superman, and thinks Clark is a goofball. Superman is the tough-guy that everybody is amazed about and love, and deals with injustice and crime. And there just needs to be some sort of a main bad guy, and it would be a good idea to put Lex Luthor to rest, since he was perfected by Gene Hackman.

Maybe the best thing about the original two were the way they managed to build up expectations and excitement between the scenes. And how incredibly satisfying it was each time Superman arrived to save the day.

Hopefully this will get Warner moving on to other popular DC comics characters... I couldn`t care less about Superman.

Siegel and Shuster will have the copyrights to Superman as he originally appeared in Action Comics #1, not the iconic one we know.

this may cause Warner to leave their superman "comfort zone" of referring to the first two films, which they did in "returns." And light the creative fire to turn out something great. On the other hand, the possiblity of Marvel having a chance at landing the rights to Superman is amazing, but nearly impossible.

I'm pissed off. What the next movie NEEDS is a 21st century telling of Superman, origin and all. Similar to the Byrne version/Superman: TAS. And they could have Brainiac as the villain. This is ridiculous....

This freaking sucks!!!! I hope the family causing all this crap starts to get hate mail from Superman fans!

As for the movies, I utterly HATED Superman Returns, that darn kid, and above all, that GOD awful lifeless performance from Bosworth as Lois Lane!!!

I'd give anything to see a reboot with a better cast and some freaking villains for crying out loud! Besides Zod & Co. why has it been so dang hard to bring in well known villains to these Superman movies??? ENOUGH with Lex and the whole real estate thing, what about Brainiac, Bizarro, even Livewire? It just seems hopeless anymore! :-(

I see an alternate universe Superman on the horizon.

@Oscar
@Vic, just imagine him in an Avengers movie or a Hulk vs Superman film

I am with you on this one LMAO

with that whole super kid its easy to see where they were going, and i would have loved it.

with that storyline if im the writer i put supes against an unstoppable opponent, craft some sort of sacrifice theme and kill ole big blue off to the shock of millions of people.
THEY practically showed us their vision when he should of died in returns. the kid was too young to take over though

What does this mean for Smallville because it uses the history of Superman all the time?

DC and the Siegels are co-owners of the Superman copyright until 2013. Basically, DC could still use his origins just that they have to pay the Siegels for it. The Siegel and Shuster family could take Superman elsewhere, but they can't use the name because DC owns the trademarks for it. DC also owns the international copyrights as well.

Wow I'd say in legal terms Warner Bros is quite F-ed!!

I'd still like to see another Routh Supes film with a better costume, No Luthor, Terrance Stamp Zod and Bay directing it (but with the implicit restriction that his writers not be allowed to pepper the film with Generation Stupid's MTV-ish, Axe body Spray-ish hip hop and other inane youth pop culture references) Maybe Mark Waid could be enlisted to write it

As long as Super boy gets his own Comic book again and DC keeps on publishing Superman comic books and related materials without changing too much. I don't care. It's kind of like having Obama for President. Nothing I can do but go for the ride.

Superman franchise is dead anyway. Why does it matter?

Any word on what this means to Smallville? No more Jor-El?

This pretty much settles it for me - no more Superman movies for me. The first Christopher Reeve movie is the definitive Superman movie for me and probably always will be.

@Vic, just imagine him in an Avengers movie :) or a Hulk vs Superman film :)

Hey, guys:
Yeah Vic, you're right, enough with the origins! Everyone in the theater will know what Superman is about. Now its time to really expand (and I don't mean a Doomsday 2 hour slugfest either. YAWN! I cant think of anything more boring to me OR the general public who they REALLY need to fill the seats this next time around).
The perfect Superman movie is characterization, action and HEART (something the Batman movies don't really need to provide due to the nature of the character). Superman Returns DID come close.
And Brandon Routh was fine in the previous movie. Warner's just needs to ramp up pace in the next one (do the opening minutes of Lethal Weapon 2 come to mind?) now that all the reintroductions are completed.
And face it, Superman Returns was not all Singer's fault (I loved it!) Warner's did not go blindly into that endeavor; they signed off on the script and it was their money. If there was ANYTHING they wanted changed, believe me, they would have said so!

Then there it is. Either do a follow up on Supey Returns (and using clever ways of killing off 'The Kid' or ignoring it ='hey, it's really Earth 411 or Earth 999' etc etc, those are random numbers, you know what i mean) or..

a Superman movie which is a stand alone Superman movie and is made as if Superman visited an alternate eath by accident, comes to the real earth and finds no Supar- Kid or anything like that. He just has to fight Bizzarro or Darkseid.

He just has to get on with it. Period.

Iwouldn't have been opposed to an origin film, as long as it was sufficiently different from the 1978 movie's. Moot point now, though.

If WB are really going to make this movie, and he can't have any enemies who are after him for being Kryptonian/Jor-El's son (Brainiac, Mongul, Zod, etc.) then make Intergang the villian, with B-list villians like Metallo, Parasite, and Livewire as superpowered flunkies to gang leader Bruno Manheim.

@Oscar

Marvel buying the movie rights to Superman? Now THAT would be rich, wouldn't it? :-P

Vic

Just what does "expanded origins" mean?
Stuff like The Eradicator?

I want a doomsday or imperiex movie, id like to see superman x in an imperiex story. Of course, theyd need a crazy budget to do those, and to do them right would probably be difficult.

*for