With all
of the recent furor over the Batman films on the boards, I’ve seen
oft-regurgitated slams on the Schumacher films for being so overtly gay and
non-serious. But I just don’t see the complaints as much when it comes to what
Bryan Singer did with Superman Returns. After all, he turned
the franchise relaunch into a bloated, mopey chick flick featuring a sometimes-swishy
Lex Luthor. While there were no Bat-Credit Cards to be seen, the crystal land
baron scheme struck me as no less absurd, and it took itself way more
seriously. What I would’ve given for Lex breaking out a Battleship console as
he cracked wise and fired shots at an incoming Supes…
I had
hoped the lukewarm reception and news of a Justice League film would end the
whole misbegotten enterprise once and for all, but if that’s the case, somebody
needs to copy Singer’s screenwriter, Michael Dougherty, on the memo. In a
recent conversation with an average joe (who happened to be a Superman fan
posting over at the Man of Steel forums), Dougherty said that Superman:
The Man of Steel was still on track for a Summer 2009 release, and
would continue following where Schumacher dared to tread by adding two villains
this time. You would figure Lex Luthor would be one of them given his “stranded,
but angry” status at the end of the first film. I would think Brainiac is
numero dos, but that’s as up-in-the-air as everything else about this film.
But let’s
say that’s the intent of the script. So what? One, there’s little chance that
they’d be able to pull off a Luther/Brainiac teamup as badass as the one in the
Justice
League Unlimited cartoon, so this is likely to disappoint given Singer’s
action track record thus far. Also, in order to treat fans to anything other
than yet another 2-hours of Super Power Lifting, the budget of any Supes sequel
would need a significant boost from the original, and that’s….unlikely. Unless
the DVD sales have mysteriously jumped off the charts, Warners would do better
to let Dougherty and crew keep on scripting while forging ahead with the George
Miller-helmed Justice League movie.