‘Superman’ Going Back to Square One/Warner Bros. Wants Darker Comic Book Movies

First off, let’s start with a quote from Warner Bros. Picture Group President, Jeff Robinov as he spoke with The Wall Street Journal today.

“‘Superman’ didn’t quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to.   It didn’t position the character the way he needed to be positioned.   Had ‘Superman’ worked in 2006, we would have had a movie for Christmas of this year or 2009.   But now the plan is just to reintroduce Superman without regard to a Batman and Superman movie at all.”

That last statement was directed to the fact that WB had planned on a ‘Batman vs. Superman’ movie had ‘Superman Returns’ been as big a hit as ‘Batman Begins’.

This can only mean Singer is out, Brandon Routh is out, everything we saw in ‘Superman Returns’ is being written off, and the franchise is starting fresh.   This strategy didn’t have the impact on ‘The Incredible Hulk’ that Universal wanted it to have, since the film cost more than Ang Lee’s ‘Hulk’ and made about the same at the box office.   However, completely rebooting ‘Superman’ could mean more for that franchise in the long run.

This is particularly noticeable when you take into account all of the Superman plotlines that have never made it to the big screen.   In five ‘Superman’ movies, we have had four Lex Luther stories, and the one that didn’t have him had Richard Pryor and a giant computer.   We have yet to see Brainiac, Bizarro, or Doomsday on the big screen.

Robinov also explained in the Wall Street Journal article that he would like all of WB/DC projects to follow the same dark, brooding atmosphere that made ‘The Dark Knight’ such as smach success.

“We’re going to try to go dark to the extent that the characters allow it,” Robinov said.

The guy may know what he’s talking about, since such directors as Christopher Nolan credit Robinov for the success of their films.   Nolan said Robinov “really encouraged the logic of the villain” from ‘Batman Begins’.   This allowed Nolan to focus heavily on the Joker character for ‘The Dark Knight’.

“At the scrip stage, Jeff really wanted us to be very clear on the Joker’s lack of purpose,” Nolan said.

Certain DC characters might benefit from this darker tone.   Batman is surely one of them.   However, characters like Green Lantern and Wonder Woman might not warrent a darker tone.   It will be interesting to see the development of the next ‘Superman’ movie and the direction its creators take.