Poor Superman. His last movie was a disappointment, and now his DC Comics stablemate Batman is getting all the box office glory. But Warner Bros. has a plan, according to the Wall Street Journal, to reboot the Superman franchise, and its DC superhero properties in general. That plan, in a nutshell: Do what Marvel does. (After all, Marvel didn't wait around too long to go back to the drawing board with a Hulk reboot.) The two prongs of the plan: First, make a bunch of related movies about individual DC heroes (including Green Arrow, Green Lantern, the Flash, and Wonder Woman), then tie them together with a group tale (the sidelined Justice League of America movie), à la Marvel's Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and the Avengers. Second, make the characters all psychologically darker (like Iron Man, the Hulk, the X-Men, Spider-Man, etc., but more importantly, like Warners' own Batman, as Christian Bale has portrayed him, to great box office success).
Derivative as it is, this is not a bad plan, but can it work for Superman? The Man of Steel is not usually thought of as a brooding, tormented character, but there's certainly room in his mythology for him to be portrayed that way. David Mamet wrote an essay about 20 years ago emphasizing Superman's history of psychological damage. He's an orphan who never knew his real parents or even his birthplace; he loves a woman he can't really have, everyone he's close to is consequently a target for his enemies; he's an immigrant who remains a freak who'll never be able to fully assimilate (and who finds refuge in the remotest place on Earth); and the only thing that can kill him is literal fragments of his past. Plus, his human disguise -- as weak, awkward, clumsy, ineffectual professional bystander Clark Kent -- suggests he doesn't hold humanity in high regard.
Still, do moviegoers even want a dark Superman? We do like our superheroes bleak these days -- not just Dark Knight and the Marvel characters, but also Hancock and the forthcoming Watchmen. And we've certainly seen Clark himself display plenty of teen angst on Smallville. But moviegoers have almost always gotten a Superman who's a big blue Boy Scout. There's certain to be outrage from some quarters if Superman is portrayed as something other than the untroubled, apple-pie defender of Truth, Justice, and the American Way. But I wouldn't worry; he's a pretty strong guy. If he bounced back from Superman IV and Superman Returns, he'll survive this, too.
Director Bryan Singer is finally spilling some details, to Empire magazine, regarding the long-whispered-about Superman Returns sequel (Superman Returns Returns?). While Singer grumbles at talk that his 2006 reboot was a failure -- if a movie that grosses nearly $400 million is a flop, he suggests, then we've set the bar awfully high) -- he does acknowledge that many viewers were disappointed that there was so much nostalgia and romance and so little action. He's not apologizing for that either (it was necessary, he suggests, in order to reestablish the characters after their long absence from the screen), but he does promise that the next installment will have less mush, more rush. "From frame one, it will be unrelenting terror!" he promises. He says he will be directing it, he implies that Brandon Routh will return as the Man of Steel (sorry, all you Superfans who wanted to toss him overboard), and he notes that the script is in development. (No confirmation of the rumor that Transformers' Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman will be writing it.)
So it sounds like the story is not carved in stone yet. Now's your chance, PopWatchers, to tell Singer what you'd like to see in Part Deux, who the villain(s) should be, and what other plot contrivances Superman should leap in a single bound.
Three cheers for the former Lois Lane! Or make that six cheers, seeing that both Teri Hatcher (who portrayed the Man of Steel's love interest on TV's Lois & Clark) and Margot Kidder (Miss Lane in 1978's Superman and its various sequels, opposite Christopher Reeve) were in fine, hilarious form on ABC's Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters respectively last night.
I'm not sure which actress surprised me more. I've pretty much abhorred Hatcher's klutzy, fickle Susan Meyer (pictured, left) since midway through Housewives' first season, but I howled with laughter last night watching her set ablaze Ian's stuffy mother (Lynn Redgrave) in an outdoor barbecue mishap. (Given her history, no one should trust Susan near an open flame.) I'm just hoping the show's writers ditch gloomy Mike Delfino (the suddenly wooden James Denton) and set Susan free of the same recurring plotline she's been stuck in since the series began. Who knows? Maybe then I can finally stop daydreaming that she'll be the next Wisteria Lane resident to meet an untimely demise.
Kidder, meanwhile, brought a breath of blowsy air to Brothers & Sisters as Nora's kooky pal Emily Craft (at right). I'm not sure if Kidder was partially improvising her dialogue last night, but her critiques of Nora's potential date outfits ("That was maybe nice when Fawn Hall was around!") and double-entendres ("This may be a cocktail party, but I don't know which blanket that little piggy's gonna be under, if you get my drift") were deliciously daft and freewheeling. Can't this character get a spinoff, maybe as a life coach for women of a certain age? Emily's Crafty couldn't do any worse than Emily's Reasons Why Not, could it?
Thank God for the Razzies. In these self-serious, awards-heavy months, it's so refreshing to have something as silly -- yet completely dead on -- as the Golden Raspberry Awards, which offer prizes for the year's worst movies and performances. Some of the categories are just fantastic -- Worst Remake or Rip-Off, Worst Excuse for a Family Film, etc.
Leading the nominations are Sharon Stone comeback vehicle (Not!) Basic Instinct 2 (pictured) and the Wayans Brothers' most recent attempt to secure a place in hell, Little Man. Alongside those two in the Worst Picture category are Bloodrayne, Wicker Man, and Lady in the Water. It's my humble opinion that Lady in the Water should win hands down. The difference here is that, as opposed to the other four movies, in which everyone involved probably know they were making something awful, M. Night Shyamalan truly, truly thought he was doing something great. (If you find this hard to believe, pick up Michael Bamberger's hagiographic book about the making of the movie, The Man Who Heard Voices. It really makes Shyamalan look bad.) I'm not going to lie, I walked out of the movie three-fourths of the way through. I was embarrassed to be watching it, and embarrassed for everyone around me. I hope never to hear the word "narf" again.
Going down the rest of the noms, I think Uwe Boll (generally acknowledged as the worst living director of non-pornographic films) is a shoo-in for Bloodrayne. Worst Screen Couple? It's between Sharon Stone's breasts and Nicolas Cage and his bear suit. And while Kate Bosworth is only nominated once for Worst Supporting Actress (for Superman Returns), while Kristin Chenoweth was nominated for three movies, Bosworth ruined what could have been something great. You're no Lois Lane, Kate.
Look at the list, PopWatchers. Who or what do you think deserves a Razzie? Any obvious oversights?
Are the DVD’s days numbered? Two new recent developments are likely to affect most pop culture consumers. Wal-Mart unveiled its own video download service (first available title is the new-to-DVD Superman Returns, pictured), while the CEO of Regal Cinemas said Wednesday that Regal won’t allow the window between a film’s theatrical and DVD release dates to close completely.
But is this really a big deal? Um... yeah. Wal-Mart accounts for a full 40 percent of U.S. DVD sales, and Regal is the country’s largest theater chain (they were also the first to have pretzel bites, if memory serves). In other words, what these guys do affects millions of PopWatchers across the old U.S. of A.
Demand and supply: I read somewhere they’re related. So how to explain the following projects? Don’t get me wrong: I’m excited about each and every one of them.
My media-nerd heart leaps like a gazelle in a "Bloom County" T-shirt. And yet, I wonder, as I often wonder, about mass audiences -- is there sufficient appeal to drive the following projects?
-Bruno, Da Ali G Show's flaming Austrian fashion reporter, is Sacha Baron Cohen’s third-best-known character, after Ali G and Borat. Now, the latter just saw his film’s distribution plan scaled back because… he wasn’t well-known enough. I imagined no one was breaking down Baron Cohen’s door for a Bruno movie. I imagined wrong. Universal just paid $43 mil for worldwide rights. So what the hell do I know.
-Superman Re-Returns? Yup -- despite not-so-much in the returns department, Bryan Singer’s on deck for a 2009 follow-up. This time, the budget will be a highly frugal $200 million, or so they say. This, after Returns (pictured) only just crossed $200 mil at the domestic box office. But don’t talk economics to Supes: He is not bound by your weak "Earth gravity."
Superman’s returns have been called everything from “solid but unspectacular” to “disappointing” to (hoo boy!) “anything but super.” Everyone seems to agree that Warner Bros. and its latest sucker, um, co-financer, Legendary Pictures, will take hits in the tens of millions, at least until every last DVD dollar is counted and victory is declared.
But what does this mean for the Bryan Singer-directed sequel, tentatively titled Superman Returns Again This Time For Real, Y’all? Looks like the 2009 opening predicted by Singer at Comic-Con might be a little optimistic, if reports about the brewing budget battle are to be believed. Honestly, if Returns cost $225 million, how can a sequel possibly up the ante for under $200 million? (I dunno... good storytelling maybe? And a return to the classical tradition of messengers relating off-skein action in verse?)
The good news for Superfans is, Warner Bros. would seem to be too heavily invested in the franchise to pull out now. Which practically guarantees another return. Just one where Superman does most of his crimefighting from a desk, surfing the Internet, and working the phone.
I’m putting the challenge to you, readers: How do you make a bang-up Supersequel for under $200 million? Budget your effects at a million per sec and dream away.
Pity James Marsden: He's wealthy, charming, and handsome. But he does have a problem: Hollywood seems to have decided he'll never be a leading man in a major movie. He nabs the role of Cyclops in X-Men, and they write the thing right out from under him. Suddenly Cyclops isn't so much the charismatic leader of the X-Men as a prep-school lacrosse captain, riven with insecurities and always in need of rescue. 'Clops sits out most of X2, and by the time the third installment rolls around, his death is a bizarre afterthought, a blip of a plot point. Then Ol' Jimmy gets cast in Superman Returns... as the second-string fiancé, a role he already perfected in The Notebook. Except this time, his rival is the Man of Friggin' Steel. Hoo-boy.
But here's the thing: He's good in Superman. Really good. In fact, he creates what's arguably the best-developed, best-realized character in the entire movie. His Richard -- a preternaturally "nice" guy who's also, thankfully, neither a putz nor a patsy -- is by far the most human figure in Bryan Singer's marvelously dreamlike but totally unearthly moviescape. He's the only character who, by his own example, answers the movie's principal question: Why does the world need Superman? Answer: Because Superman would be wasted on a world that didn't contain "ordinary" people as good -- not perfect, not super, but good -- as Richard. Ordinary goodness is a hard sell in a superhero movie, but Marsden pulls it off effortlessly, without cheese, ick, or obnoxiousness.
Thus, I open the floor to Marsden maniacs, if, indeed, they exist. Let's hear from fans of his work in The 24th Day, Gossip, Saved by the Bell: The New Class. Want to point everyone to a great Marsden Moment? Want to speculate on his inability to get leading-man traction? (I'd argue he stands apart from the hairless blandness of the world's Hartnetts and Blooms.) Jimmy it up below.
Hollywoodland (Sept. 8) Ben Affleck is the new Brandon Routh. Or is it the other way around? No matter, I'm totally gonna check out this noir-ish looking biopic about the mysterious death of TV Superman George Reeves (Affleck, pictured), the trailer for which synergistically ran before Superman Returns in many theaters this past weekend. I know, I know; the last time Affleck donned hero drag, we got the crappy Daredevil, but with Adrien Brody, Diane Lane, Bob Hoskins, and Wonderfalls' terrific Caroline Dhavernas (in a supporting role) signed on to what's an inherently interesting story, how bad can this one be? (And is it just me or is that Kathleen Robertson in the scene by the clothesline? Maybe that Swank chick is starting a trend toward 90210 alumni credibility?)
Sure, Superman Returns is worth seeing on the big screen, but is it worth seeing on the really, really big screen? Not only has the movie been simultaneously released in IMAX format, but a few minutes have been converted to 3D. The movie's publicists say there's 20 minutes of 3D footage, but I saw the modified movie last night, and it feels like less; in any case, 20 minutes out of 157 amounts to just 1/8 of the movie.
There are four such visually enhanced sequences: a flashback to Clark Kent's joyous early flying experiences in a Smallville cornfield; Superman's midair rescue of a disintegrating jumbo jet (pictured); a shipwreck and rescue sequence; and some final moments of Superman flying solo. Of these, the plane wreck is the most impressive; you'll feel like the jet is being dropped into your lap. Otherwise, Superman's feats (and the FX behind them) are generally impressive enough that the 3D effect seems superfluous. I'd say that, if you're just seeing the regular 2D version at the multiplex, you're not missing much.
That said, the giant-screen IMAX format does suit Bryan Singer's sprawling epic, with its grand vistas of the Metropolis cityscape, or Lex Luthor's vast, black, desolate, crystalline island. You can see every vulcanized thread in Superman's costume and every villainous pore in Kevin Spacey's face. But the 3D aspect does give me a new appreciation for Clark Kent. Now I have an idea how it feels to be gifted with unusual visual powers -- and to have to wear big, stupid glasses.
