With the recent revelation that Warner Bros. is determined to “get Superman right” and that a sequel to the controversial Man of Steel is currently in active development, the obvious question is: What are they going to do differently?
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I personally really liked Man of Steel, but the notion that audiences hated it has caught on with the internet and become a kind of truism. Follow that up with the equally-divisive Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and in that film the (SPOILERS) death of Superman at the hands of Doomsday, and the next Superman movie certainly has its work cut out for it.
The Superman films historically, though, have been kind of a mixed bag. With Batman, to take another big-name example, you’ve had a handful of auteurs who controlled his entire big-screen destiny in the modern era — and even if you don’t like the Joel Schumacher movies, they had their own point-of-view and came from a reliable box office winner.
Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest For Peace, meanwhile, were mostly forgettable films made by filmmakers who were better known for making competent, enjoyable movies with little long-term cinematic impact than for having their own distinct voices and styles.
So for decades, it was The Goonies director Richard Donner, who took on Superman: The Movie and big chunks of Superman II (there’s a story there, but we won’t go into it just now), who defined the conversation about the Man of Steel. Even when Richard Lester came in for Superman II and Superman III, then Sidney J. Furie tackled The Quest For Peace, the look and feel of Superman’s world remained largely Donner’s.
For years, that remained the case. Music for TV shows, cartoons, and more called back to John Williams’s brass-heavy theme, which was actually used not only in Superman Returns— another sequel to Superman: The Movie and Superman II which pretended ONLY Donner had ever touched the property — but also in Smallville‘s finale. During production on Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, it was actually considered news that Snyder would not reuse that theme.
Then came Snyder. Love him or hate him, he’s a visual iconoclast who has spawned imitators. His 300 was a huge, unexpected success that made him a “brand” in and of himself and elements of that style have creeped in around the edges of the three DC films (including Watchmen that he’s already made, and will likely continue into Justice League, even though it seems like that movie has taken a fairly dramatic tonal shift.
It doesn’t seem likely he’ll move on to Man of Steel 2, though. Besides the fact that a great many fans have little confidence in his ability to deliver a Superman they can believe in, there’s the fact that if Snyder doesn’t do Justice League 2, he’s likely done directing DC movies.
(Reports have been conflicted over the last couple of years as to whether or not he will make a second, but recent set interviews indicate that he’s only signed for Justice League at present.)
So if Snyder were to move on, who could replace him? Would we want a totally new voice, or somebody who could maintain a brand? And if the latter, what brand would we want to maintain — Donner’s, Snyder’s, or something else?
There are probably a dozen or more really good candidates — and in all likelihood the person who gets the gig will almost certainly be somebody we don’t see coming. But who could that be?
We’ve got some thoughts…!
And yes, yes. Joss Whedon would be great. So would Ryan Coogler. But in all likelihood neither of them are on the table for this project, so I’m trying to look at people who might take Warner Bros.’ call about it.
If you have a better pick, please chime in below!
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GEORGE MILLER
When news broke a few months ago that Mad Max creator George Miller would be making a Superman film, the internet went wild for a few days…until it was inevitably shot down. No Man of Steel sequel was currently in production, per Warner Bros.
Around that same time, questions arose as to whether Miller would be making Mad Max sequels, throwing more fuel on the fire of speculation that he might work on the DC Extended Universe. According to IMDb (which only bats about .500 in these things), the filmmaker is credited as a producer on Justice League, which as Ben Affleck will tell you might be a pretty good indicator that Miller has more DC going on right now…but as far as anybody knows, Miller’s first priority is writing and possibly directing Mad Max: Wasteland.
All that said, he’s a visual master, and bringing him into the Superman franchise would allow the studio to take something on that’s simultaneously as grounded and gritty as Snyder and as vibrant and colorful as Donner. At the risk of jumping on one of the most popular bandwagons in recent years, it sounds perfect on paper.
BRAD BIRD
Given his success with The Iron Giant for Warner Bros. — the movie frequently called “the best Superman movie ever made” — it’s hard not to at least throw Brad Bird’s hat into the ring for this one.
He’s a guy who’s been playing with house money for most of his career. In spite of financial misfires like The Iron Giant and Tomorrowland, almost everything he’s ever done has been met with enthusiasm by critics, and he’s bounced back from setbacks with massive hits like Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and The Incredibles.
The biggest stumbling block to getting Bird would likely be wooing him away from Disney. He’s been constantly rumored to be in the mix for a Star Wars film, and his long resume at Pixar makes him more or less a lifer at the House of Mouse. But it’s nice to at least entertain the idea…!
TIM STORY
Who doesn’t like a redemption story?
Clearly Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment do, which is why they were willing to bet the farm on Ben Affleck as Batman and (mostly) win.
And Tim Story, whose most recent films include Think Like a Man and Ride-Along, is another guy whose career was almost imploded by doing superhero movies for Fox (in this case, two Fantastic Four movies). But with the success of his recent films and with a Fantastic Four movie having come out in the interim that’s widely regarded as being worse than either of his, Story on a superhero movie isn’t the worst idea in the world.
And hey — bonus? Tim Story is a hugely talented filmmaker, whose big-budget superhero movies weren’t all that good. Is part of that his fault? Sure, but superhero films were much different back then — and let’s also not forget that the audience as a whole enjoyed the hell out of Fantastic Four and it became retroactively bad mostly after everyone hated Rise of the Silver Surfer.
But watch Barbershop and tell me he doesn’t get character. Watch Ride-Along or Taxi and tell me he can’t direct the hell out of an action sequence when he has to. And remember that if he were to take this gig, he’d have Geoff Johns, Ben Affleck, and others whispering in his ear, preventing things from going too light or silly.
EDGAR WRIGHT
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World convinced everybody that Edgar Wright knows how to make a movie that pleases the fan base — which, really, is the missing component in Zack Snyder’s films.
He’s managed to make smart, action-packed, good-looking superhero movies that alienate so many people that they lose a lot of potential revenue. And it’s really unlikely that Wright would make that mistake.
Besides the box office disappointment of Scott Pilgrim, things have generally gone pretty well for Wright in his career, which is dominated by visually-interesting comedies with big action set pieces. He almost made Ant-Man for Marvel — and by that we mean, he developed the movie for years before he and the studio stopped seeing eye to eye and filed for divorce about two weeks before the movie started shooting.
This one, like Brad Bird, would be a Hail Mary throw but one with huge upsides with geek audiences. And, really, who doesn’t want to see Simon Pegg come in to play a grown-up Kenny Braverman or something?!
KATHRYN BIGELOW
Bigelow’s aesthetic would lend itself really well to continuing Snyder’s visual take on Superman, although it’s unlikely that an auteur like her would be willing to be cowed by the studio.
The director of (the original) Point Break and Near Dark, Bigelow is one of the most influential female directors in genre filmmaking, even if in the recent past she’s shied away from that sort of thing in favor of more gritty, grounded movies that have made her a perennial Oscar favorite.
One of these days, Bigelow — widely regarded as one of the best directors in Hollywood — will end up helming a $200 million mega-blockbuster. It’s just a quest of whose offer she ends up accepting first. And if it were to be Superman, it would give the DC Extended Universe a huge infusion of “credibility” among the critics who have consistently despised the studio’s output so far.
Honorable Mention: RICHARD DONNER
…Well, the man’s still active, after all.
At 86, it’s unlikely Donner would be able to direct a movie of this scope and scale — his last big-budget feature film was in 2006 — but bringing him on as an adviser and executive producer would likely be a significant symbolic gesture to bring in fans who may have sworn off the franchise after Snyder.
What would his role be, then? Certainly he’s capable of helping craft a screenplay, still. He did, after all, work with DC Entertainment’s Chief Creative Officer and President Geoff Johns on a run on Action Comics not that long ago.
Another possibility is having him work closely with a relatively untried director, providing some experience with big-budget, high-expectation feature films on either a young director, or somebody out of TV like Glen Winter (who has directed a number of the best-loved Smallville episodes and TV pilots in recent memory) or Michelle MacLaren (whose Breaking Bad episodes and Game of Thrones success nearly got her a couple of major motion pictures before she finally came to a deal with Columbia on The Nightingale recently).
This assumes that accomplished people like that wouldn’t mind working with somebody like Donner, but we’re going to assume that even when you know what you’re doing, most filmmakers probably suppose Richard Donner could provide some insight on a Superman film.
