Superman Locked in WB's Fortress of Solitude

Thursday

26Nov2009

Superman Locked in WB's Fortress of Solitude

Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 7:27AM

There is an inescapable point at the end of a new article by Anne Thompson relating to Superman. After several paragraphs devoted to the big black hole of movie nothingness the world's most famous comic book character finds himself in at the moment, Thompson says pointedly that people still care about the character, and that no matter what happens over the next couple years, that alone should indicate we'll get a meaningful attempt to recapture their interest in the megaplexes.

For me, the climate just isn't right for Superman. It's true that, as Thompson argues, you can make the Man of Steel darker. But I don't know if Warner Bros. would be doing itself any favors taking that road. It's certainly risky, although if there's one thing Superman Returns definitely lacked, it was a sense of danger. But I think the overriding expectation is for Superman to be a superman, less morally and mortally flawed than Batman.

The trouble is, these times are perfect for Batman, because subconsciously, Americans living in a bad economy and being inundated with news of two wars and all the rest want someone more like themselves to rise up through it all and grab the world by the throat. It's cathartic. Bruce Wayne may be filthy rich, but he's more like us than Clark Kent. Kent is a better hero in better times. Truth, justice, and the American way is easier to sell when people believe those things are applicable to their own lives.

But we won't need to worry about that for a while, because Thompson reports what we'd suspected for a couple months: Warner and DC have quietly pulled up stakes on a new Superman flick until the dust settles from a recent copyright lawsuit in which the comic book powerhouse lost significant claims to many of the property's most identifiable traits. Those rights go back to the heirs of series creators Siegel and Shuster in 2013, no matter what.

What I wonder is whether or not the ruling impacts when DC can work on a film treatment of the character before it loses the rights and then release it after those rights have reverted back to the families. Thompson reports that might be a moot point, since Warner isn't moving forward at all for the time being.

I have no issue with this at all, largely because of the psychobabble I spouted above (which is not an absolute in any case), but also because we're supersaturated with comic book heroes at least through 2012, anyway. By the time DC might be able to make a new Superman flick, maybe we won't be coming off a summer with four superhero movies and maybe the political mood will have improved enough that we really will need a hero who better reflects that spirit.

But the red cape will stay in mothballs for a few more years.

Colin Boyd |

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