Pa Kent

Glenn Ford, who played Pa Kent in the 1978 Superman movie, passed away yesterday. His photo can be seen on the mantle (or is it on the piano?) in Superman Returns (along with a photo of a young and beautiful Eva Marie Saint).

Sequel Inches Closer to Reality

Legendary Pictures, which funded half of Superman Returns, is reportedly signed on for a sequel.

My Favorite Trailer

I still get chills watching this one. I have no idea why it was only shown in the UK -- its great!

Musing on Sequel Ideas

Here's mine:

Earth’s computers are affected by a crazy virus. No one can figure it out. Turns out its Braniac infecting the world’s computers to re-gain his powers. And after he does, he emerges in human form – that of Richard White. In this guise, he finds out that Jason (-el) is Superman’s son, and he takes Lois and Jason (-el) captive. Braniac frees General Zod and the others from the Phantom Zone and together they conquer the Earth and turn to the destruction of their #1 opponent: the last son of Krypton, Kal-el. Now Superman must not only to save the Earth but Lois and Jason (-el), too. How will he battle these four superbeings and will he have to make a horrible choice?

Questions:

• Where does Braniac come from? How is his backstory explained?
• What is Superman doing while Braniac is re-forming?
• How does Braniac free General Zod and the other criminals from the Phantom Zone? Does it involve him uses his consolidated computer power?
• What happened to the chunk of green kryptonite laced rock that Superman threw into space? How can the criminals use that against Superman?
• Should Lois die? Should Richard die as a result of Braniac’s (inevitable) defeat? Should Jason become an orphan, just like Kal-el – and what will Superman do with him as a result? Raise him, as a single father (Clark)? Or give him to someone to raise, as he was given to the Kents? Too much of a downer?
• What about Lex Luthor? Does he have any role to play in this movie?

What if, instead, this is envisioned as a two-parter, to make a trilogy? In this movie, Braniac takes over the world’s computers and emerges in the body of Richard White, but he teams up with Lex Luthor. Lex tells him about the still-growing chunk of green kryptonite out in space which they use against Superman. Lois dies, as Superman defeats the villains, but Braniac gets away while Lex is imprisoned. In the next film, Braniac does something to open the Phantom Zone to free General Zod and the others and when he does, it creates a time warp and Superman is able to save Lois. Then he defeats the bad guys and all is well.

Whaddya think?

Hopes Dashed (kidding!)

Brandon Routh is engaged.

Sequel Confirmed?

According to this LA Times article (registration required) WB's Alan Horn seems to be confirming a sequel for 2009:

Horn expects "Superman Returns" to eventually gross about $400 million worldwide, more than last year's hit "Batman Begins." Nonetheless, "Superman" fell at least $100 million short of his expectations.

"I thought it was a very successful movie, but I think it should have done $500 million worldwide," Horn said. "We should have had perhaps a little more action to satisfy the young male crowd."

Still, he's betting Warner has firmly reestablished the "Superman" franchise and is planning another installment for summer 2009.

DVD on Nov 28?

VideoETA is reporting a Nov. 28 release date for the DVD.

Yum, Buttery

Superman in butter at, of course, the Iowa State Fair.

DVD Release Date?

Justin at bluetights.net is reporting the possible DVD release date is Dec. 4.

Hollywoodland

I'm looking forward to seeing Hollywoodland, the film with Adrien Brody playing a detective investigating the death of George Reeves, played by Ben Affleck. I think its getting released September 8.

Donner Cut of Superman II

It is my understanding that the Richard Donner re-cut of Superman II will be released on DVD November 28.

The Script

I read the shooting script yesterday (ordered it from Amazon). These things are always interesting, because you can see the changes, what they cut out from the film and what they added during shooting that didn't make it into the printed script.

Deletions included:

• a sub-story about Martha telling Clark that she's selling the farm and moving to Montana with Ben Harper
• an implication that Lex planted the story about Krytpton being found to get rid of Superman
• of course the entire opening sequence of Superman being almost killed by green kryptonite as he gets to the remains of Krypton
• young Clark having an X-ray vision experience in the barn and finding his cradle/ship with the "father" crystal
• a scene in which Clark finds 5 years worth of Daily Planets in the barn and reads them in seconds
• a scene in which Clark stashes his suitcases in a closet at the Daily Planet and opens one to see his Superman suit hidden within his Clark clothes (I've seen a still of this shot)

They played a number of scenes slightly differently in the movie from the script, including the bar scene with Jimmy and Clark, the piano scene, the Lex in the Fortress of Solitute scene and a few more. The thing with Superman going into the flaming gas line tunnel isn't in the shooting script, although the chaos of the crack in the Earth is.

It's also interesting to see how cutting even a line can make a huge difference in how the scene is played. In the closing scene between Superman and Lois, in the script he says "thank you" and he doesn't in the movie. Much better without it.

Anyway, I enjoyed reading the script and especially the interviews with Bryan and the writers that were included in the book.

Looking Up

One thing I really liked was the scene where you see people looking up into the sky. This parallels the George Reeves TV show where this was a scene in the opening sequence. But instead of the people looking up to see Superman flying, they are looking up to see him falling back to Earth after throwing the kryptonite-laced continent into space. Love it.

Little Things

When Richard says that Jason (-el) got an A in science and a D in gym -- what 5 year old is taking science, let alone getting a letter grade?

That brown cordoroy suit looks as bad on the elegant Kevin Spacey as it did on Gene Hackman. Its just awful!

When the missile is fired off of the ship, the entire ship and the people on it would've been thrown backwards, not just the martini glasses.

What's with the olives -- Kitty is eating a glassful on the boat and Jason(-el) has them on his fingers in the galley.

Prometheus was a titan, not a god.

When the ship rises out of the water after being impaled by the growing continent, the nearby seaplane would've been overwashed. And if not then, certainly when the ship breaks in half and crashes into the water.

There are a few other instances of bad science which I can't recall right now, but hey, its a fantasy, right?

8th and done?

Well, I have not seen the movie since July 30. That was my 8th time and it may be my last. Although I have to say it will be hard to resist if it plays at the only theatre in town that serves dinner with a movie (they do not show first run films). Once again, the theatre was packed and again the audience was very diverse in terms of race, age and gender. Nice to see.

The Voice

I've read many comments about Brandon Routh capturing the voice of Superman and I agree. His Clark is much more subtle than Chris Reeve's bumbler, but then that part of the Donner film was a slapstick comedy and this film is not. But I do think Brandon did a great job of creating a voice for Superman that was powerful, confident, sincere -- all those things Superman is. Very convincing.

The Look

Coud we please stop saying that Brandon Routh looks like Christopher Reeve? Could we just acknowledge that both look like Superman? Sheesh!

Another Comment on the Marketing

I think it would be interesting to find out where the "Superman is gay" meme started. When I first heard it, my initial thought was that this was a dirty trick. It just so smacked of a deliberate plant, the kind of rumor sure to spread like wildfire among our stupid media. Sure enough did. I just read Down and Dirty Pictures the book by Peter Biskind about Miramax, Sundance and the independent film movement, and several stories were related about Harvey Weinstein doing that sort of thing. Not saying he did in this case, he had no reason to. But I'll bet someone did. I'm just saying...

Annual Superman Celebration

In Metropolis Illinois, they have an annual Superman Celebration. Looks a little too dorky for my tastes.

I Crack Myself Up

The other day I asked my daughter if, now that Superman knows that Jason is his son, if he will start calling him Jason-el -- as in Kal-el, Jor-el, etc. :)

Magic Hair

My daughter pointed out how hilarious it is that Superman can have totally mussed up hair in one shot and have it perfect -- complete with that forehead curl -- in the next. For instance, in the scene where he's flying out to save Lois from Lex Luthor, his hair is blowing in the wind. Superman stops flying when he realizes that Metropolis is about to suffer as the earth is splitting from Lex's growing "continent" --and in that shot of him hanging in the air, his hair is absolutely perfect! Its hilarious. It happens several times. BTW, I read somewhere that it took 45 minutes to style the curl.

Marketing Disaster

Well the film continues plodding along -- its at around $187 mil domestically and another $132 mil foreign. Why was the U.S. performance not as strong as was expected?

One reason is the weak economy (don't belive the propaganda -- out here in the real world, times is tough) and people limit entertainment spending when gas is $3 a gallon. So they saved their money for that piece of shit Pirates and didn't go see Superman.

But the main culprit, I believe, was the shitty marketing effort for this movie. First, let me say what I would've started doing the week Pirates came out -- I'd have run "man on the street" type spots featuring moviegoers saying something like "Yeah, Pirates was OK, but for my money Superman was the movie of the summer!" Everyone who saw it knew they'd been ripped off with Pirates -- it sucked big time. So why not take advantage of that? But I know that's not how things work in da bizyness.

One thing I will say about the marketing is that they completely ignored the women's audience. Where were the mushy spots on Lifetime or Oxygen or all those home improvement/cooking networks? Where was the marketing aimed at the teen audience for Routh and Bosworth? Yeah I know they were on TRL but the only teen magazine cover I saw was Bosworth on Teen Vogue. The lesson of Titanic was that teen girls will go see a movie over and over again -- but that was ignored in the marketing of this movie.

I also have to say that I saw almost no TV ads in the weeks leading up to the film but I saw a shitload of them for Pirates in the 2 weeks before it came out. I've seen plenty of Superman spots in the last 3 weeks -- and the movie opened more than a month ago -- but that's probably because Singer pitched a fit (entirely justified) about the lousy marketing of the film.

I did see a lot of film and entertainment magazine covers on Superman, so clearly some part of marketing did their job. But they didn't spend enough money on TV and they ignored entire segments of potential audience.