By: Russ Burlingame on February 5, 2012
With his debut feature Chronicle looking to take #1 at the box office this weekend, Max Landis has hit the Internet in a big way this weekend to promote it. After all, as comic book writer and film producer Jeff Katz pointed out on Twitter, it’s a hard sell to release a major “popcorn” movie on Super Bowl weekend. People who don’t care at all about football will stay home and watch for the ads, or go to parties where people drink and ignore the game.
In the course of expanding his web presence, Landis has made available a 15-minute cut of his 45-minute short film based (loosely and comedically) on the bestselling Death and Return of Superman story arc from the 1990s. More accurately, it’s Landis sitting in a chair and complaining about the story, and intercutting silly and low-rent dramatizations of plot elements into the conversation. At any rate, it can be seen below. After Superman: Doomsday, this would still only be the second-worst adaptation of the story if it were meant to be taken seriously.
With appearances by Elijah Wood, Mandy Moore and that guy who narrated Arrested Development, Landis’s first foray into superhero filmmaking is worth a look.
Why Superman is wearing his Grant Morrison costume in a retelling of a 1992 story is anyone’s guess.
