Superman Set To Fly

arock99 writes "After many years of battling various script rewrites, Superman is set to soar again. Various sources (superman-v.com, darkhorizons.com, aintitcool.com) report that Brandon Routh (of Gilmore Girls) has been cast as Superman. With production only a month away, Brian Singer is set to tackle yet another super-hero film after previously having directed both X-Men and X2. Had it not been for his recent passing, Christopher Reeve would surely have been part of the production team in some capacity. Superman should hit theaters around summer 2006."

Comments

Brandon Routh?

[sofakingon]

Who the heck is this guy? Gillmore Girls? C'mon now, why not use the guy from smallville or something. I mean how many supermen can we have? Not that anyone can top Christopher Reeve, may he rest in peace.

Re:Brandon Routh?

[will_die]

The problem with getting the kid from smallville is that the movie would be seen as being based on that version. So it would be a matter the same story line, but in the future, or risk upsetting the viewers.

Re:Brandon Routh?

[TheViciousOverWind]

He was a good Superman, but Dean Cain in Lois & Clark was even better.

That comment, really must be a good example that drinking and posting isn't a good mix.

Re:Brandon Routh?

[danger_boy_13]

They approached the actor from Smallville, but he didn't want to do it.

Bad taste

[Dancin_Santa]

Not that they are making another Superman series, but that they are doing this with the full knowledge of the Superman curse.

I don't know who this latest guy is, he doesn't even warrant a picture in IMDB, but we'll soon be seeing him hiding in some bushes or thrown from a moving train or some other strange and inexplicable circumstance.

On top of that, the real Superman, Clark W. Kent, died in the comic books years ago. So did Bruce Wayne, the original Batman. Can't we just let these heroes among us pass in peace? Do we have to drag their dead carcasses out of the grave to squeeze just one more penny out of the franchise?

Re:Bad taste

[Anonymous Coward]

...or frozen!!!

Re:Bad taste

[Lisandro]

Of course, it was just a publicity stunt; the guy died in the comic allright, complete with special editions and stuff, but killing Superman would be just like killing Daffy Duck. You can't make a comicbook character die and dissapear, even less one like Superman.

IIRC, the Superman comics actually continued, but with a different storyline; something like "Son of Superman". Check this link:

"Naturally, this would not be the end of the Man of Steel; after a number of stories in which Superman's friends and family deal with their feelings, it's discovered that his body is missing from his mausoleum, driving speculation that he might still be alive. Adding to the mystery are four new characters who each claim to be a new incarnation of Superman: a young, cocky kid with Superman's powers; a steel-suited African-American construction worker; a cold and vengeful hero who had taken over Superman's Fortress of Solitude; and a cyborg who half-resembled Superman and half-resembled the robots from the Terminator movies. After months of stories in which all four new Supermen worked and fought with each other, the one true Superman returns to claim his rightful place in the DC pantheon."

Anyway, i bought the comic when it came out. It worked on me, the bastards :)

Re:Bad taste

[TwistedSquare]

I presumed that's what the original poster was referring to, Superboy/Steel/Eradicator (I think)/Cyborg, but they made it sound as if Wayne/Kent had gone for good, which was puzzling me... Although I don't remember Wayne dying, though his back did get broken by Bane and he got replaced for a bit... ah the joys of Marvel/DC continuities!

Re:Bad taste

[servognome]

a steel-suited African-American construction worker
How the hell did he try to pass himself off as superman?
"Yeah I'm Superman, I was just in the Carribean getting a tan"

Re:Bad taste

[Mant]

On top of that, the real Superman, Clark W. Kent, died in the comic books years ago. So did Bruce Wayne, the original Batman.

Comic book characters die, and come back to life, all the time. Spuerman was dead for a bit, but came back soon after. I'm not aware of Bruce Wayne ever dieing in main continuity.

Of course, they get killed is some non-continuity Elseworlds stuff. Plus back when DC had parralel univerese (they all got merged in Crisis on Infiniate Earth) Bruce Wayne died in Earth-2, but not the 'main' Earth.

Characters like Superman and Batman are pretty archetypal. Subsequent generation re-invent them to suit the times, that is what happens with mythlogy, it keeps it alive and relevant, and IMO is much better than just leaving them alone.

Re:Bad taste

[Scutter]

killing Superman would be just like killing Daffy Duck.

You can't kill Daffy Duck. All you can do is blow his feathers off with dynamite or make his beak spin around with a shotgun blast or something.

Re:crude humor

[Anonymous Coward]

Q. Whats the difference between Christopher Reeve and someone who tells a Christopher Reeve joke?

A: Christopher Reeve still had some feeling left

Picture of Brandon Routh

[CheesyPeteza]

Heres a picture of Brandon and a write up of him at Latino Review: http://www.latinoreview.com/scoops/brandon-superma n.html

Uncouth

[JerSully]

Some of the replies to this article are amoungst the most tasteless and uninformed that I've seen on Slashdot. Come on guys, take 10 seconds to research the new actor and refrain from saying mean things about Mr. Reeve for now. But... yeah... Gilmore Girls... Until I looked him up I was confuzled.

Anybody else

[Anonymous Coward]

Think this is kind of weird timing after Christopher's death?? Kind of like the HHGTTG movie timing. They had to wait for Douglas to die before they could go forward with what production wanted, (ie a money making movie, not a GOOD movie). Anybody else think Mr Reeve maybe had some say that the production didn't like, and now that he's gone it gives them the chance to go forward?? Just my 2 cents.

Re:Let's not be hypocrites

[Anonymous Coward]

Rubbish. The Superman project has been in development hell for something like 5 or 6 years now: it has gone through several incarnations and several directors. Nicholas Cage was rumoured to be in line to play the Big Blue Boy Scout, Wolfgang Petersen was going to direct Batman v Superman but dropped out to helm Troy instead, Brett Ratner was then attached to Superman for a long while (the Batman element was dropped when Chris "Memento" Nolan signed up to helm Batman Begins), Kevin "Clerks" Smith wrote a script which got ditched, then McG was mooted to take over after Ratner got dropped, before Singer signed up a couple of months ago. Not necessarily in this order. All this happened *before* Christopher Reeve's death.

Don't know about that

[Chuck Chunder]

But Teri Hatcher's breasts were the best Lois Lane breasts ever.

They're real

[chegosaurus]

and they're spec-tacular!

Comics and stereotypes...

[Spy der Mann]

Well for one, I like the Smallville story. They present us a vulnerable, guy with problems like everybody else, who wants to hear about caped princes on their stallions to "fight for justice"? Way outdated. (Not that we don't need an idealist hero in this screwed up time, but we need a REAL one)

But if they make a batman based on "Batman of the Future", yeah cool. :)

I remember reading the history of comics on a TV documentary.
(related history of comics link).

Comics are always made by people based on the time's moral standards and public expectations.

Like for example, the wonder woman was so popular in the time where women were seen as inferior. One day the guy decided to take away her powers, and the story sucked. Lotsa women protested against that.

And Flash Gordon. Always rescuing the girl. Because in that time, i don't know about you, but IMHO women just acted stupid and submissive.

Another example? Captain America. It was made in WW2. Everybody wanted to see Hitler smashed by capn's shield. Good ol' times when America was the REAL Iron fist of democracy. Is it a coincidence that the "Golden Age" of comics was from 1938 to 1945, just as the WWII?

So, in those days, superheroes were seen as Role models. "What I want my child to be". But now they're the escape of teenagers who can't find their own place. Look at the latest comic movies. Do they focus on the superpowers, or more on the personal problems and conflicts of the heroes (Spiderman, Daredevil)? And they're a hit.

So yeah, the script guys BETTER give us a good movie adapted to our current times, or we'll smash the reels on their faces.

What?!?

[nicktripp]

Why did the original poster list him as "of Gilmore Girls"? If he had bothered to read the profile at IMDB that he linked (instead of just looking for a picture?), he would have seen that he was only on one episode of "Gilmore Girls", yet he was on the soap opera "One Life to Live" for two years and MTV's "Undressed" for another year. Unforunately, it seems most of you fell for this and are were immediately biased based on his one appearance on a WB show.

where was /. when Christopher Reeve passed away?

[funkdancer]

Don't know about you guys, but to me Reeve was a very big man not only being the best Superman there could ever be but also for the strength and incredible courage he showed when almost everything was taken away from him in that accident.

I checked in then and several times of the next few days, over and over again, to see any mention of it and a thread regarding his life and his fight for pushing technologies and research in the spinal areas, but alas no mention at all. It would not be an understatement to say that I did get quite emotional thinking about how he would not live to witness the fruits of all that will be discovered in the next 10 years.

So I guess I've finally found the thread to oust my disappointment with the editors.... Just to think that only the _new superman_ warrants mention when a _great one_ passed away. Bloody good one, mates.