Superman Update

Hail and well met friends!  There has been a lot coming of the Superman, or rather Man of Steel camp lately and we’re here to condense it for you and possibly offer a bit of speculation.  First, from Entertainment Weekly is a brief article talking about some of the things we can expect from the Zack Snyder directed film.  Naturally, we have the promises of big action, something that has largely been absent from live action Superman films (though that has as much to do with the era in which they were made than anything else).  More interesting though was what kind of superman we can expect.  From the article:

This film reveals that even on Krypton, young Kal-El was a special child, whose birth was cause for alarm on his home planet. (More on that in the magazine) And once on Earth, his adoptive parents, Ma and Pa Kent (Kevin Costner and Diane Lane), urge him not to use his immense strength – even in dire emergencies — warning that not every human would be as accepting of him as they are. So Clark Kent grows up feeling isolated, longing for a connection to others, and constantly hiding who he is. As a result, Man of Steel presents the frustrated Superman, the angry Superman, the lost Superman. “Although he is not susceptible to the frailties of mankind, he is definitely susceptible to the emotional frailties,” Cavill says.

Now, that is one packed paragraph.  The first sentence frankly has me worried as it suggests that Kal-El’s abilities are not inherently Kryptonian, that he may basically be a mutant.  Whatever else that is (assuming it’s the case) it is a major and I think unnecessary change to the mythos.  Of course, it could mean other things such as the possibility that he is the first child born in a long time or something like that.

The rest of the paragraph shouldn’t be too surprising to those who have seen the trailer.  Ma and Pa Kent are not overly enthusiastic about their adopted son using his powers as they don’t trust the world around them.  The way it is presented in the trailer is jarring but if one thinks about it, it really isn’t that far removed from what we saw in the Donner films of the 1980’s.  Similarly, the angst (or vulnerability if you prefer) that Cavill talks about isn’t as completely alien as one might initially think.  Going back again to the first Richard Donner Superman film we saw young Clark frustrated at the way people treated him, eager to show the world what he could do and angry that he couldn’t.  We also saw and older Clark dealing with the seeming impossibility of a relationship with Lois Lane.  The emotional vulnerability of Superman is really nothing new, though this new film does look take it up a notch or two.

Next, Screenrant has a story apparently pulled from a longer version of the same article.  In it, Jeff Robinov, the president of Warner Bros. makes it official that Man of Steel will be the official launch of the DC shared movie universe.  This has long been assumed but it is nice to have it made official.  Robinov also states the announcements of new movies will be coming soon.  Whether those will include the Justice League in 2015 or not is still somewhat up in the air though.

Concerning the rumors of Chris Nolan and Christian Bale’s involvement with Justice League that Latino Review broke a couple weeks ago Robinov flatly denies any truth to them.  He sounds pretty unequivocal, but then again – Ben Kingsley wasn’t the Mandarin and Marion Cotillard wasn’t Talia al Ghul.  Time will tell.  Personally, I think Bale is a long-shot and given the Nolan is presently working on Interstellar direct involvement is admittedly unlikely.

But what about Batman?  I can’t remember where specifically I saw it but Robinov again provided an interesting quote.  What he said amounted to something like “Nolan’s films are great stand alone movies.  But there’s no telling what we’ll do going forward.”  What I get out of this is that Robinov is in one breath acknowledging the obvious, that Nolan had no intention of building a shared universe with Batman.  In the next, the Warner President says basically that they are at least looking at the possibility on integrating that world with the Justice League world.  Though if anyone says “multiverse” I swear I’m gonna get my axe.

Regardless of what one reads into some of the above-mentioned quotes and the things revealed in them it is certain that this new Man of Steel is going to be one of the most talked about movies of the summer.
The adventure begins June 14th!