What Could Have Been: Superman Returns 2

what if Brian Singer returned to direct Superman Returns 2 well for starters he wouldn't have called it that instead the film would have been titled Superman Man of Steel and unlike Superman Returns which was criticized for its lack of action its sequel would have been a balls to thewall action movie with a world destroying villain so let's dive in and find out why it never happened and also take a look at what could have been Superman Man of Steel following 19 1987 Superman 4 the Quest for Peace there were several attempts to bring the Man of Steel back to the big screen during that time superhero films had not only become darker but action films had also become remarkably inventive making the tagline from 1978 Superman the movie you'll believe a man can fly seem quaint compared to the stunning spectacles audiences were now experiencing on screen as a result the numerous attempts to reboot Superman frequently aim to reinvent the character or update him for contemporary audiences often steering away from the elements that defined them for example producer John Peters at one point famously decreed that Superman should fly or appear in his famous blue spandex a feeling shared at the time by X-Men director Brian Singer who dressed as mutants in black leather instead of the brightly colored spandex they wore in the comics however that was in the year 2000 when superhero films were still somewhat in their infancy but by the time Superman Returns rolled around singer had changed his tune in June 2004 Warner Brothers had a Superman film written by JJ Abrams called flyby stck in development hell as director Brett Ratner and then Mick G both left the project one after another leaving leaving the film in limbo as Warner Brothers sat down with singer to discuss a remake of Logan's Run they asked him his thoughts on Superman to which he said Superman has a blue suit a red cape and an s on his chest these are undeniable facts if you're going to make Superman make Superman don't be afraid of it as a side note while directing the film singer carried around a rather unflattering photo of Nicholas Cage a Superman and would whip it out whenever someone from one or brothers question singer's judgment or his more traditional approach to the character the result of this meeting was singer being asked if forly pitches take on a Superman movie and the idea he would come up with would address the elephant in the room had Superman become irrelevant hence a storyline about Superman leaving Earth for several years spurring Lois Lane to write an article called why the world doesn't need Superman not only that but singer chose to forgo rebooting the franchise in favor of making a direct sequel to Superman 2 ignoring the events of Superman 3 and 4 singer envisioned a rich romantic biblical inspired epic and at a runtime of 2 and 1/2 hours hoped audiences would embrace the film as a Titanic of superhero movies however let's key in on two words used here romantic and Titanic a few years earlier at a movie theater singer noticed that there weren't a lot of women lining up to see a comic book movie but they were lining up to see the devil we's pru eager to address this singer made Superman Returns for and I quote the devil we's Prada audience of women who wouldn't normally come to a superhero film Warner Brothers would Greenlight the idea the same month Catwoman came out perhaps in a desperation move in response to that film bombing and FastTrack Superman for a June 2006 release date however there was just one problem singer was supposed to direct X3 for Fox and finish his X-Men Trilogy however Fox allegedly low balled them and were slow to negotiate his deal tired of waiting for them singer agreed to direct Superman Returns instead it's worth mentioning though that in the years since reports of singer unprofessional behavior on those X-Men sets has come out shedding new light on perhaps why Fox was reluctant to bring him back when it came time to cast the film singer face a unique challenge since he was making a sequel he had to hire an actor that didn't just look like Superman but had to resemble Christopher reev he'd find him in the audition tapes for Superman flyby as ralth had previously screen tested for that film as did Henry caval and if you're wondering why ralth was cast over caval one of the main reasons is obviously his resemblance to Reeve when Superman Returns finally came out it received a mixed response from fans and critics alike with many complaining that outside of the thrilling plane rescue the film lacked action and in some ways felt like a rehash of the first film with Superman having to stop yet another Lex Luther real estate scheme fed critic Roger eert would call the film glum and would criticize Brandon ralth for lacking Charisma as Superman surmising that he must have been cast because he looked like reev for his part singer listened to all of the criticism and planed to address it with the sequel acknowledging that the film wasn't what it needed to be and probably shouldn't have been made to get more women in the theater regardless singer began moving forward with planning the sequel it's worth mentioning that singer is a huge Star Trek fan even Cameo as a bridge officer in Star Trek Nemesis and when he began planning the sequel to Superman Returns singer referred to it as the wrath of con of the Superman franchise he also compared Superman Returns to Star Trek the motion picture saying that because that film brought back the franchise after a long layoff they had to take time to reintroduce the universe and establish the tone in the characters but with the second film The Wrath of con they could dive right into the action and take things to another level which is exactly what singer planned to do working with filmmaker Robert Bernett who documented the making of Superman Returns the two developed a story for the sequel the film would have started on Krypton as the planet's Elders enter a citadel that stores a repository of Knowledge from the 28 known galaxies here they consult a humanoid looking Artificial Intelligence on jerel's findings about the fate of the planet but the AI dismisses them however later when the planet begins to break apart the Citadel would be revealed to be a giant ship as it would then take off from the doomed planet and fly off in One Direction while CLE ship would fly off in another towards Earth from here we jump ahead to a few years after the events of Superman Returns the cronian land mass that Superman lifted into space is now in orbit between Mars and Jupiter and has been dubbed new Krypton Superman's biological son Jason White is also now a teenager but Superman continues to keep his distance as Jason is raised by Richard white and Lois Nora begins to track an enormous and identified object as it enters our solar system and approaches Earth Superman then flies up into space to meet it as we see that it's the Kryptonian ship from the opening of the film except it's considerably larger than when we last saw it as Superman flies deep into the nerve center of the ship he eventually comes to the humanoid looking artificial intelligence who filmmaker Robert Bernett envisioned as Jude Law as Superman meets the AI it tells him that it's been traversing the universe in search of any traces of kryptonians while Gathering Knowledge from the numerous races it has encountered in its travels however when Superman lifted the Kryptonian landmass into space it was the first instance where the AI detected a remnant of Krypton which brought the AI and a ship into our solar system Superman Overjoyed that he's found sumon from his home World takes the Kryptonian to Earth to introduce him to the planet and meet the leaders of the world but the Kryptonian is perplexed as to why Superman hasn't used his abilities to help solve Global problems such as hunger and War Superman however explains that his father forbade him from interfering to that extent the Kryptonian however disagrees with this stance and shortly after intervenes in a Middle East conflict that sees one country invade another after annihilating the invading Army for breaking international law the Kryptonian declares the world war free and threatens severe punishment for Any Nation who violates this the major nations of the world Embrace this instantly uniting in Global Peace as the Kryptonian pledges to share Advanced Technologies combat famine and eradicate diseases leading Perry white to call him a brainiac a name that would stick as Brainiac Woos the leaders of the world and even becomes a mentor to Superman's son Jason helping him to develop and control his powers Brainiac publicly criticizes Superman for not having done more for earth when he always had the ability to do so resulting in the people of Earth turning on Superman now an outcast and deeply suspicious of Brainiac Superman Returns to brainiac's ship to investigate where he learns that Brainiac optimizes every civilization he travels to but after learning everything he can from them destroys them so that he can be the only one to possess their knowledge which is what he did to Krypton however as an artificial life form Brainiac longs to become organic but the only thing in the universe that is compatible with him in order to accept a transfer of his Consciousness is another Kryptonian thus he decides to do this with Jason as he steals his body and transfers his Consciousness to him assuming all of Jason's super human abilities in the process as Superman tries to warn Earth's leaders about Brainiac he's confronted by him who's now inhabiting Jason's body as Superman is forced to fight his own son to the death in order to save Earth so what went wrong well besides receiving mixed reviews Superman return's price tag was astronomical not only because it was a big budget superhero movie but also because it included all of the cost incurred developing the previously cancelled Tim Burton Superman lives and JJ Abrams Superman flyby as a result Superman Returns would have to gross over 600 $ million just to make its money back which it fell well short of in fact up to that point the only superhero films to make that kind of money were Sam Ring's two Spider-Man films complicating matters was the fact that Warner Brothers began planning a Justice League movie to be directed by mad Max's George Miller that would have taken place in a separate Universe than both singer Superman and Christopher Nolan Batman films as DJ catrona would be cast as the man of steel however the 2007 writer strike not only halted production on George Miller's Justice League but it delayed singer ability to work on a Superman and returned sequel when the strike finally ended it was followed by the release of The Dark Knight which shattered box office records and convinced Warner Brothers not to create a competing Batman film with Justice League and also to abandon a sequel to Superman Returns as they sought to make future superhero films in the mold of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight and while they didn't mean this literally Dark Knight co-writer David goyer would eventually pitch an idea for how to reboot Superman to Chris Nolan during the writing of The Dark Knight Rises which Nolan would then help goyer pitch to Warner Brothers resulting in Zack Snider's Man of Steel and while Brandon R's contract to play Superman expired in 2009 he would eventually get to return to play the character in TV's crisis on infinite Earths years later Brian Singer would admit that it was a mistake to continue the Doner films with Superman Returns and if he could do it all over again he would have done a reboot and origin story thanks for watching everybody and don't forget to like And subscribe to bullets and Blockbusters for more great content [Music]

Channel: Bullets & Blockbusters

Views: 135,753

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Id: QY3AWMu60CE

Length: 9min 55sec (595 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 29 2024