Jul
6
News website Omelete recently caught up with Superman Returns star Brandon Routh on the set of Scott Pilgrim Versus The World to talk about a possible sequel to Bryan Singer’s comic book flop. The one-time Kryptonian, however, was less than sure about whether or not he would be filling the red boots again. In the interview Routh stated, “I do not know of anything. I am sure that Warner Brothers is moving there, but everything is uncertain. Really, I do not know anything. The term contract has expired. But if they call me, I would suit up without thinking twice about it.”
In light of this we’ve decided to get our thinking caps on and decide who could don the cape for the inevitable sequel. Here are our totally irrelevant, based-on-nothing-at-all, semi-serious picks at who should takeover from Routh:
Zachary Quinto
Sssss. That’s the noise you hear when you touch Mr Quinto’s skin. After playing Sylar in Heroes and a certain Vulcan in Star Trek this guy is hot property and as a result has the stature to bear the burden of the ‘S’. Crucially, there’s a touch of the lonely outsider about him as well, which is something Brandon Routh carried off well in Superman Returns. He’s relatively tall too. In fact, the more we think about this, the more we like it.
Tom Welling
By the time the sequel rolls around Smallville might be ready to make the jump to the big screen, bringing Tom Welling with it. Let’s be clear, though: Welling is about as talented an actor as trees are talkative. Seeing him in the costume would go down poorly with more than a few fans.
Sam Worthington
He didn’t exactly shine in Terminator Salvation but he certainly had presence – an increasingly rare quality on Hollywood casting couches and an important one for potential Supermen. If he worked on the accent, dyed his hair black and chucked some contacts in, this could really work (although as we’ve already cast him as Captain America for the upcoming movie, which will almost certainly come true, he could be in danger of being typecast).
Jim Caviezel
Few actors do wide-eyed innocence quite like Jim Cavaziel and after playing another saviour of mankind in Mel Gibson’s The Passion Of The Christ he has the experience too. Plus, he was dead cool in the cruelly overlooked The Count Of Monte Cristo so we’d like to see him get another shot at the A-list. Much will ride on the success of the upcoming Prisoner remake.
Christopher Reeve
It might be a bit soon for this in terms of the technology required but there is little question that Mr Reeve had the look of the Last Son Of Krypton nailed, so a computer-generated version of him would at the very least tick one of the more important boxes. (Insulting emails to the usual address).
All good suggestions, but what about these dudes donning the cape???
1. Nathan Fillion (it’s all about the chiseled jawline and dreamy eyes)
2. The Rock (Because he’s big, has muscles and is sort of heroic)
3. Zachary Levi (It would be a geek casting victory – plus Chuck rules!)
4. Daniel Craig (He helped reinvent Bond, so why not Superman?)
5. Terrence Howard (He never got the chance to be War Machine in Iron Man, the guy clealy deserves a chance to show off his hero chops)
Have you been drinking, Shaun?
I think if it happens soon, Routh will be back – and fingers crossed for that.
As an aside – is SFN doing anything on the DCAU Superman/Batman team-up due out in September?
Cheers
Russ
I would like to see Gerard Butler in the role, I think Routh looked too young to play the man of steel and whatever her name bosworth was just roobish!
Why change the lead actor unless he wants out? Routh was let down by an ordinary story and poor casting, particularly Kate Bosworth.
I don’t like any of these suggestions as Superman(apart from Reeve of course!), then again I liked Superman Returns. The movie looked amazing and Routh was convincing. Not to mention it had Kevin Spacey as Luthor!
For the record, I liked Routh too. Shame the rest of the movie was an uninspired, overblown homage to a wildly overrated comic book movie.
Yeah, that’s right, I said it.
yeah, but you rated The Dark Knight, Aaron…
The Dark Knight is absolutely a superior movie to Superman: The Movie.
I respect Donner’s film’s place in the industry and it has some decent moments with a terrific lead performance but it is not the flawless masterpiece so many believe it to be. It’s drawn out, frequently dull and struggles to balance its grandiose mythology with the relentless silliness of the later acts.
The Dark Knight is a much more coherent, engaging experience, and one that has more to say than most other comic book movies put together.
TDK has its weaknesses of its own. Overcooked performance from the lead, too much made of a decent performance by the supporting actor, misplaced set pieces, an anti-climatic use of a major villain Batman’s canon and – for me at least – a feeling of incompletness of this piece of the narrative (even if if its the middle part of a trilogy, it should have some sense of timing). TDK feels like its 45 minutes too long or two hours too short: I’ve said before, an LOTR-style DVD of the “humongous cut” would be give the TDK its due perhaps, but it’s by no means the “perfect comic book movie.”
I loved Batman Begins – that, for me, was a far better film than TDK.
But, back to Superman (keeping things on topic) – I think the key thing you mention there is the terrific lead performance. Reeve carried that movie off in such an amazing way it has set the benchmark for all of its “descendants” and no-one has come up to that mark. Not Bale, not Jackman, not McQuire.
For me, Superman the Movie is as close as I’ve seen to the perfect comic book movie. Relentless silliness? I’m not sure about that: it could be argued that Hackman’s Luthor did balance out the “grandiose mythology” that you mention here, otherwise the film could have become too awe-stuck and bogged down by a sense of a its importance.
All that said, if Menkowitz hand’t severely doctored Puzo’s original script then it would have been a complete disaster and slipped way too far into camp silliness (who loves ya, baby).
On Superman Returns – I really really enjoyed it. When it became apparent that there would no (immediate) sequel, I read a comment by Donner who advised us not to think of Returns as the beginning, but rather as the third part of the trilogy he started. Viewed from that perspective, it really does make the movie something more than was originally intended and (neatly) avoids answering the questions it raised.
Not that that’s what should have happened – but still – it works for me!
“Too much made of a decent performance by the supporting actor” is not a criticism of the movie, it’s a criticism of critics, surely.
I agree, though, that there are flaws. But for me they are like tiny blemishes on the skin of Morena Baccarin – more or less irrelevant when compared to the overall achievement.
This is one for the pub, I reckon…after a few beers we’ll probably end up swapping our respective Superman and Batman t-shirts…
I don’t drink.
Seriously, though, for the record, my T-shirt would almost certainly be a Superman one. More than any other comic book character I would like to see him done justice on the big screen. Sadly, in my opinion, that hasn’t yet been achieved… but I live in hope.
Zachary Quinto -
i don’t think so…
maybe tim drake when the character is in his 30’s
a possible kyle rayner
or even Nightwing… but i just can not see him as superman
ZQ would also make a good Dream [Sandman].
Superman needs to have some contemporary relevance before it heads back to the big screen. Somewhat like Star Trek, the Superman franchise needs a new lease of life.
A few ideas – Firstly, they need to avoid retelling the Superman origin story in great length and they need to focus less on the Kent / Lane love story.
I think any new Superman film will have to make an effort to be very big, bombastic and less domesticated.
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