Superman Fans React To Movie Reboot News

Another day, another series of heated exchange on Superman fan Twitter. Less than a week after [...]

By Russ Burlingame

Another day, another series of heated exchange on Superman fan Twitter. Less than a week after Superman & Lois debuted on The CW, igniting a minor flare-up of "Snyder fans-versus-traditionalist Superman fans" tweets, news broke that writer Ta-Nehisi Coates is set to write what reports are characterizing as a reboot of the Superman movie franchise for producer JJ Abrams. The prevailing theory is that Coates will base his screenplay on either Val-Zod or Calvin Ellis, two of the most prominent alternate Supermen in the DC multiverse. That's because Coates, best known for his writings about the Black experience, is rumored to be developing a story centered around a Superman of color.

There's a lot going on with the announcement; for years, fans have speculated about a Man of Steel sequel, and Henry Cavill, who appeared in that movie as well as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League, is a big part of why. Fans love his depiction of the Man of Steel -- including some of the vocal contingent of fans who dislike Zack Snyder's DC movies; even among those people, the consensus seems to be that Cavill is an inspired choice to play Superman and should have been given a more straightforward script to approach it from.

That means Cavill fans -- and the folks working on social media to #RestoreTheSnyderverse -- aren't happy with the prospect of the character being recast at all. The #RestoreTheSnyderverse hashtag, a follow-up to fans' successful attempts to lobby Warner Bros. to release Snyder's cut of Justice League, is aimed at pressuring the studio to allow the filmmaker to complete the five-movie cycle he originally had planned before leaving Justice League.

In addition to all of that, many Snyder Cut fans -- and some people who aren't Snyder fans at all -- have concerns about WarnerMedia's alleged treatment of Ray Fisher, onetime The Flash director Rick Famuyiwa, and other creatives of color. The move to cast a Black Superman, critics suspect, is an attention-grabbing, public-facing move aimed at taking the pressure off of their other offenses.

There is a potential "solution" for Warners -- if indeed they want one -- in terms of Cavill, which is to simply allow Clark Kent to coexist simultaneously with another, Black Superman. Introducing such a character in The Flash, a movie that jumps through DC's multiverse and will already star two different Batmen as well as Supergirl (Sasha Calle), seems like a no-brainer.

Overall, though, there's enthusiasm about the idea of making a new Superman movie, and about the idea of exploring some new groudn with it. And, of course, plenty of jokes.

You can see some of the responses sampled below.

Not Clark

Will it even happen?

Earth-2

Mixed emotions

Kind of a low bar.

Milestone

Lots of speculation about Ray Fisher out there

Also, plenty of lens flare jokes

Cavill

Betting on a Black Superman

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