When CHUD gets something wrong, I’m happy to strike it out, rewrite it, and admit it.
Variety’s site doesn’t work for me. Not the paywall, not the free previews, nothing. I saw “female Superman lead” and used a healthy amount of pop culture logic that it would be Lois Lane.
I can’t be the only one to have made the gaffe, since Twitter was also screaming about a foreign Lois Lane. Either the initial story was unclear and updated as I went offline, or we all had the same page lock-up, and thought “Oh, female lead. Must be Lois.”
Regardless. Old story gone, new story up. My most sincere apologies. I don’t normally make that kind of huge gaffe and I cringe that it reflects on CHUD.
But the essential part of the story isn’t changed: Rosemund Pike, Diane Kruger, and Alice Eve are up for the female lead in Superman. It’s simply an unknown character. Presumably, she is blonde. Perhaps she is also foreign. If this is truly a “Superman wanders the world” tale, maybe she is a gorgeous European he meets who reminds him how wonderful Earth is and how desperately it needs a hero.
Perhaps the Smallville theorists are correct, and she is Lana Lang.
She could be Cat Grant, gossip reporter and brief romantic interest for Clark Kent. Maybe this isn’t a love interest at all, but Captain Maggie Sawyer, though I can’t imagine even a Superman reboot is ready for a lesbian.
Nevertheless, it is strange and interesting that Superman is taking on such a European flavor with the casting. I don’t think we’re actually getting an English Superman (come on!), but I do wonder if this is a tale that has a more global bent. The big angle with this Superman is that it’s supposed to reinvent him for a modern world, and show his relevance. I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine that angle is to make him look beyond America’s borders, and actually be Earth’s hero, not just America’s. This is something the comics have done, but the movies really haven’t. (Bryan Singer tried, but it just didn’t feel very expansive.)
Perhaps we’ll soon learn the identity of the Mysterious Blonde (rumor has it a big Superman story falls on Super Bowl Sunday), and unlock the movie from there.