First Look at Henry Cavill as Superman. Full sized pic here.

Also starring
Amy Adams as Lois Lane
Michael Shannon as General Zod
Antje Traue as Faora
Russell Crowe as Jor-El
Julia Ormond as Lara
Kevin Costner as Johnathan Kent
Diane Kane as Martha Kent
and Christopher Meloni as...

Directed by Zack Snyder, who has done Dawn of the Dead, 300, Watchmen, and Sucker Punch.

Written by Chris Nolan and David Goyer, who of course did the current Batman trilogy.


Is anyone excited for another Superman movie after Superman Returns, or is it just wait and see? The one thing I'm thankful for is that the villian is not Lex Luthor.

 

It's definitely got the potential to be good with Christopher Nolan involved, but I think until there's more to go on it's a wait and see.

I've been let down by superman things before so I'd hate to build it up again to be disappointed. . . Again.

 

Not a particular fan of Superman, but with Nolan producing and that cast...I'm optimistic, certainly. Of course, then I remember Zak Snyder is directing, and I wouldn't say he's directed a great film yet. Even Watchman only just scrapped good, imo.

 

The casting in this is so hot and cold it's insane. You have Amy Adams, Julia Ormond, both excellent (and two of my favourite female actresses at the moment), Russel Crowe, who manages to be intensely watchable even when he's complete shit, etc... but then you have Kevin Costner, who turns everything he touches to shit (seriously, he's been in, what, 3 good films? All of which were only made better by the talent on the other side of the scales?), and Diane Lane, who despite having more than a modicum of talent has only made one film that hasn't made me want to punch her in the face. And, I'm sorry, but I think if they wanted to deviate as far from Superman character's aesthetic as they have, they should have pulled their thumbs out and cast Samuel L. Jackson.

I normally don't give two shits about cast, but when a movie feels so much like you had six or seven producers basically throwing polaroids at the floor to see which ones landed face up, and when a film needs a name ensemble to ensure you're going to get people to actually go and see it, it doesn't instill hope in me. This is without going into the production side of things - David fucking Goyer? Sure, his work with Nolan has been fair, but that's because Nolan's usually directing, and that guy could remake Matrjoschka to an acceptable fucking standard. Goyer's work otherwise could in one hand be summarised as Blade, and in the other hand, Blade's sequels. This is literally because Nolan's so damned precious. You still see him in Soho Editors despite now having access to the rest of the world's post production, not because he's found a 'formula that works', but because he can't let go. I'm almost nervous to go and see a film that Goyer's co-written that Nolan isn't directing, especially because Nolan's tentative, arm's-length 'weeell, you can use my name, but I'm not going to push to direct this bad boy' indicates it'll be Goyer's show. So we'll have Superman à la Jumper? The Unborn? Give me a fucking break.

And, finally, Snyder. Joy of joys. If there was anything that could, by this point, instill less hope in me than the King of Failed Potential - the mighty Missing-the-Mark gold medallist - I cannot fathom it. I know trying to stop Hollywood from the knee-jerk 'REMAKE EVERY COMICBOOK FRANCHISE NAO BEFORE PEOPLE FIGURE OUT WHAT WE'RE DOING D:' phase they're going through would be futile - like trying to put a halt to Seagal/Willis/Stallone/Van Damme/Arnie action movies while they still made money in the 1980's and 90's - but they could, at the very least, not give the scripts to Zack fucking Snyder.

So yeah, ticket sold :facepalm

 

It's Superman, GL.

Stop hatin'.

 

I'm waiting for more photos before having any serious comments about this costume. But one thing, unlike the first Superman Returns photo, this one screams action. This is a very good thing.

And I see that nobody mentioned the latest casting - Laurence "Morpheus" Fishburne is now playing Perry White.

 

I just wish they'd quit trying to capitalize off of the first movie. Yes, it was successful, and cool for its time. How about we see a different villain other than Lex and Zod, 'cause damn, I think they've run them into the ground over and over again.

I'll wait for the video like I did with Superman Returns, which I nearly fell asleep watching.

 

The last one was Kevin Spacey carrying along Parker Posey as they fought a walking special effect.

This one looks like it's following the footsteps of Clash of the Titans- throw a bunch of names at big roles with nothing for them to do. It's a mistake, since the lead will be washed away in the face of more interesting side characters.

I have a single glimpse of hope in this whole notion- with Nolan involved with this and Batman, it almost looks like they're planning a World's Finest story from the same production house, and just need this movie to establish the shared continuity, as in the Avengers from That Other Comic Company.

I don't know if that's enough of a reason to watch this. In truth, when I first saw the cast list I thought it was another spoof mock-up like the Thundercats live action movie from a few years ago.

At some point I'm hoping that Warner/DC realizes that their properties don't translate into good real-people stories quite like Marvel's does, Batman being the exception because he's unpowered. It's the same reason I see the Fantastic Four as being ill-fit for live action; the scale of the group's enemies was often well beyond human perception, making the translation to live action difficult.

 

Properties have nothing to do with it. If Marvel can do a good movie about a Norse god who happens to be also an alien using magic that is just really an advanced technology, then I see no reason why DC shouldn't be able do to the same with a normal alien, a guy who gains super-speed after an accident or woman from the lost island. They simply suck at doing them.

 

No, it's the properties. Marvel stories have always been at least kind of character driven. They translate into good stories. DC properties have always been...well, the plot is bad enough that they've needed to do a shitload of full universal retcons and the characters have kind of always been cardboard cutouts...

That story about "a Norse god who happens to be also an alien using magic that is just really an advanced technology" is really a story about the price of arrogance and the redemption of man - the comic is at least. The DC stories are about...an alien, a guy who moves really fast, and an amazon made out of clay on a lost island.

That's not to say that DC movies are inherently bad, because there are a lot of exceptions. The parts that would make a good movie, however, tend to be parts of the story that you can't fit into a >3 hour movie without assuming the audience to know who the characters are. Batman is the exception.

 

Fuck. No.

It's that sort of mundane, shrugging, half-stoned 'meh, be cool, man, it's just, y'know, superman, s'cool, loud noises, herp, and, erm, derp, 3d, yeah' maxim bollocks that allows them to keep making this shit.

Mate... Thor wasn't actually very good. I'd avoid the entailment route if I were you. All we can infer about Superman from Thor is that people prefer bright colours and glistening pectorals to any semblance of a plot.

 

I disagree. It all comes to how you use these characters. Sure, you could tell that Superman doesn't have one main theme to him, like for example Spider-Man and his "with great power comes great responsibility", but that doesn't mean that there are none. We have: an immigrant who search for his place on this world that is not really his own, a man seeking a way to use his powers to help people, champion of the oppressed etc.

It all comes to how you use these characters, not characters in themselves.

 

Am I the only one who thinks Superman looks like a bad guy in this pic? Seriously, he looks like a mob hitman or something. And the hair!

 

I'm willing got forgive the hair as long as Kate Bosworth isn't in it.

 

That's no revelation there, Master of the Obvious. We can infer that same thing from Green Lantern, The Matrix 2 and 3, Transformers, Twister, Ghost, Mission Impossible, Armageddon, Top Gun, and all the Fast & Furious crap-fests, to name a very few.

God, she was awful, wasn't she? She's very pretty as a blonde but somehow managed to look terrible as a brunette.

There were parts of Superman Returns that I really liked, but overall it was a real disappointment. I thought the action scenes like Superman saving the jetliner were awesome, and when he stops the bank robbers with the chain gun I was geeking out. Then when Superman lifts the sinking yacht with one hand, and catches the Daily Planet globe, I was pretty stoked about that too.

Of course, that's the sum total of any cool parts of the whole damn movie, and with a character as powerful as Superman, you gotta have more. He needs a super-powered villain now, just as he's always needed one.

 

Personally, I'd love it if they went in completely the opposite direction to the current Batman films, and had it inspired by comics like All Star Superman. Since that probably won't happen anytime soon though, I'll settle for a credible villain.

Marvel might not have retconned their entire universe, but they seem to have retconned each characters history etc so many times that making sense of them practically requires a PhD. And that's before you get onto the team comics. In some ways, a universal retcon might do them some good.

 

Gah, I'm a little annoyed to be saying this, but I agree with GL about pretty much everything, particularly regarding Snyder. Unlike most, I don't hate the guy's work - in terms of some of his direction, it's certainly distinctive and cinematic in a way I find refreshing, BUT this is Superman we're talking about. And the thing with Snyder is that he has a very particular visual style when composing shots, and I don't think it'll work well for this film - and on that note, I don't think Nolan is the best choice for writing this film either.

Because, let's face, all of Nolan's films have very hypermasculine, reason-over-emotion themes - and having read Superman for a long time, I can tell you that in Superman, said themes wouldn't really work all that well, and in fact would probably go against some primary elements of his mythos and symbology in ways that even Superman Returns didn't (and I really liked most of Superman Returns).

But let's be very clear about this: not only is the movie industry trying to push as many comic book movies out as possible while they're still popular, Warner Brothers in particular is desperately searching for a new cash cow to replace Harry Potter, and Zack Snyder in particular has a reputation for getting the movies done ahead of schedule and under budget. It's no surprise they picked him up for this.

*must restrain desire to rant on DC comics....*

All I will say on this is that you're wrong on a fundamental level about DC stories and characters, but that I understand your point of view, considering DC has generally done a pretty shitty job of marketing their secondary characters, particularly compared to Marvel.

 

As much as I hate sharing my honourifics, I suppose I'll loan you 'Master of the Obvious' for that one post.

I mentioned Thor because the guy I was replying to did, in the context of, 'If Thor can be good, anything can!' - specifically, I was poking holes in his logic, more than delving into a commentary of the gloss-and-cheap-thrills Hollywood machine. No thread is vast enough for that discussion - especially since we're both so good at stating the obvious. >.>

 

A few pictures out there from filming on the set, but this is probably the clearest one.

 

Super-bulge. :|

Well at least they got rid of the underwear on the outside. I still think Superman's costume needs some gloves though. That's always bothered me, how his hands are so exposed like that.

His hair makes him look like Ace Ventura.