Superman Through the Ages! Forum

If someone was to produce your dream Superman movie, what would it be about, how would it be done, and who would do it?

Here's the plot of my dream Superman movie, in short:

The story would be a combination of the first appearance of Brainiac with the first appearance of the Brainiac/Luthor Team, and The Man Who Stole the Sun.

It would be filmed entirely in bluescreen with the background and city added later, a la SIN CITY or SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW.

The hair and clothing would be "retro," in forties or fifties clothing, with the historical period clearly pre-modern in some nebulous Flash Gordon gray area that is a cross between the world wars and ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION covers. The art direction would be futuristic and 1939 World's Fair style; cars have fins on them and Lois wears a skirt and stockings.

The exact plot of it would be something like this: Superman, already established as being an important superhero, when their space plane is captured by Brainiac and he begins shrinking the cities to tiny size. Brainiac appears to be a very strange green man from an alien world. Superman is powerless to break Brainiac's forcefield, but a cryptic clue from the Legion of Super-Heroes urges him to try a different tactic. Superman sneaks aboard his ship by being micronized, and discovers Kandor, the City in the Bottle. Restored to normal size, he beats Brainiac and takes him to space prison, helpless to restore Kandor to normal. Act II begins with Luthor, seeing Brainiac's defeat by a spy-eye, discovers he is a computer machine, and rescues him to allow the two to destroy Superman together. The both of them send monsters to collect a Superman power removing formula, which includes an agreement found only in Atlantis (for instance), and they even brazenly attack a creature only found in Superman's Mythological Zoo. Luthor and Brainiac backstab each other just as is found in the original story. Then, the both of them black out the sun as in "The Man Who Stole the Sun," with Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen sneaking on their rocketship. To test and see if the weapon would be effective on living tissue, however, the two crooks use their latest weapon on Olsen... Using Lois and Jimmy as bait, the two criminals lure Superman into a trap, with their latest invention that had been overshadowed all movie: Red Kryptonite, which steals his power and changes him into some minor form (snail, toad, whatever).

Things get worse when Brainiac finally betrays Luthor and boosts himself to 12th Level Intelligence. He reveals his plan: he will convert the earth to data information, effectively "destroying" the earth. Here, he uploads himself to the "machine" Brainiac from the 1980s. Luthor gets second thoughts and an attack of conscience, and he successfully saves Superman in time to let him stop Brainiac, with help from millions of tiny Kandorians made Superpowered in earth's sun. Leaving one loose end: Jimmy Olsen, who has been transformed into a giant turtle boy...

We'd also get some flashbacks through the movie of Lex Luthor's tragic misanthropic youth, being feared and misunderstood, to make him a more sympathetic character.

Anyway, that's just an example of the SORT of story I'd like to see - really, it ought to be something much better.

As for our dream production crew, how about this:

Director = Kerry Conran (SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW)
Writer = Brad Bird (THE INCREDIBLES), possibly Elliot S. Maggin, who has written film

As you can see, only geeks allowed! As for the cast:

Superman = Billy Zane, maybe Tuc Watkins (THE MUMMY)
Lois Lane = Parker Posey, Rena Sofer, maybe Lena Headey
Jimmy Olsen = Jason Marsden ("Eerie, Indiana")
Perry White = Brian Cox (THE BOURNE IDENTITY)
Lex Luthor = Joaquin Pheonix (GLADIATOR)
Brainiac = Angus Macfadyen (BRAVEHEART)

Joaquin Pheonix is a strange choice for Luthor, until one considers that my dream Superman movie would have him be the Maggin Luthor, who is a powerful villain because he is sympathetic and misanthropic, and Pheonix has a wonderful "wounded" quality about him, a tremendous ability to show remorse.

Lord Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman - Tyrone Power
Lois Lane - Linda Darnell
Perry White - John Hamilton
Jimmy Olsen - Ron Howard (circa Happy Days)
Lord Jor-El - Charlton Heston (circa Ben-Hur)
Lara Lor-Van - Olivia DeHavilland
Jonathan Kent - Tom Selleck
Martha Kent - Diane Keaton
Lana Lang - Ann-Margret (circa Viva Las Vegas)
Kara In-Ze/Supergirl - Elisabeth Harnois
John Henry Irons/Steel – Brock Peters (circa To Kill a Mockingbird)
Lex Luthor - Yul Brynner
Brainiac - Vincent Price
General Dru-Zod - Basil Rathbone
Parasite - Woody Harrelson
Metallo - Malcolm McDowell (circa A Clockwork Orange)
Manchester Black - Ewan McGregor
Prometheus - Alan Rickman
Darkseid - Ving Rhames
Bizarro - Rock Hudson (circa Pillow Talk)
Ugly Bruno Mannheim - Treat Williams
Morgan Edge - James Spader
Mongul - André the Giant
Lobo - Macho Man Randy Savage
Magog (from Kingdom Come) - Ron Perlman

Director/co-screenwriter – Nicholas Meyer
Co-screenwriter – Matt Wagner
Producer – David O. Selznick
Music – Jerry Goldsmith
Creative consultants – Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
Director of photography – James Wong Howe
Editor – Paul Hirsch
Costume designers – Milo Anderson and Edith Head
Production designer – Anthony Pratt
FX – Weta Ltd.
Character makeup – Doug Drexler and John Caglione Jr.
Stunt coordinator – R.A. Rondell
Concept artists – Steve Rude, Ed McGuinness, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, and Doug Mahnke

In retrospect, seeing the virulent attacks on Superman Returns based on completely stupid reasons, I don't imagine this movie would fare any better. So I guess it's best that it's just an impossible fantasy.

Julian, I liked your set-up, especially the part about skirts and stockings!  I got thinking about this part for quite a while and when I came to, I found I was reading somebody's fan-fic! :wink:

Having just sat through most of Hal Hartley's extre,ely "arty" Possible Films dvd, including about 15 minutes of Parker Posey repeating the same line while the director repeatedly sets up the shot, I'm a little tired of her right now.  I never thought I'd say that!

An Earth-2/Golden Age Superman movie, with the aesthetic you describe, would also be fun for me.  No floating/flying, just leaping.

Actually not a movie, but 3 interconnected mega mini-series.  One about the golden-age version.  The second about the silver-age version.  The third about the current version.

Hmmm, good casting, King Krypton. Though why do you think Elizabeth Harnois would make a good Supergirl? She LOOKS like Supergirl, but lacks her innocent quality; there are lots of good looking blonde women in Hollywood and no disrespect meant to her, but she's one of them.

Linda Darnell - absolutely, absolutely brilliant casting here.

Ving Rhames as Darkseid sounds fascinating. He has such intelligence and dignity, uncommon in a big guy. Someone once suggested Howie Long for Doc Savage and that was the first but not the last time I wished you could slap someone through the internet.

And I'm all in favor of any Brat-packer - especially a talent like Jimmy Spader. LESS THAN ZERO showed possibly one of the greatest celebrity deathmatches of all time, on the level of Darth Vader vs. Batman: James Spader vs. Andrew McCarthy. Truly, a CLASH OF THE TITANS!

Though minus points for going for Ron Howard; he's such an obvious choice that he comes to mind right away.

Yul Brenner is a great actor but I don't see what qualifies him for Luthor other than baldness. This is sort of like casting characters based on hair color; only a blonde can play a blonde, and so on...really, these things come in a can these days, it's a minor characteristic.

Macho Man Randy Savage as Lobo was so great that it made my day.

Though after hearing the wholeheartedly cribbed Jerry Goldsmith score for the hilariously miscast RAIDERS clone flick KING SOLOMON'S MINES, I have seriously lost respect for him as a result of that act of intellectual theft.

I've always had a thing for her since childhood (she and I are the same age), and frankly, I wanna see her in spandex.

Shallow, yes, but that's just me.  :wink:



It also happens to be one of the most hated choices I made. I keep getting told to replace her with Rosalind Russell or Katharine Hepburn.



It's also a pretty popular choice in fan circles for those reasons. Michael Clarke Duncan's also a propular choice, but after Daredevil some think it would be too much.



This one I cheated on. I picked Spader because he plays sleazes pretty well. Otherwise Edge is a tough character to cast. He's got to be young enough to be a thorn in Clark/Superman's side, but not so young that he can't hack the corporate TV mogul gig.



Attitude and presence. Yeah, he's bald, but he conveys arrogance and menace, at least to me. His lack of hair is just icing on the cake. This is a guy I can believe could rule a global criminal empire with an iron fist and have the nerve to calmly threaten a demigod and make good on his threats. And since I picked Tyrone Power as Superman, I wanted someone powerful enough to make a worthy adversary.

Rock Hudson as Bizarro? Inspired, man... Inspired.

New Rule. Any new Superman movie must have Rachel Weisz as Wonder Woman:

http://home.iprimus.com.au/rennyr/Gallery_Rachel2.html

Not necessarily for any reason, though.

a golden age story set in WWII similar to  Sky captain, and pearl harbour...
futurisitc looking metropolis and gritty war scenes.

A Superman movie with Brainiac.
Years ago  The Salkinds were going to do Superman: The New Movie with Superman, Brainiac, Kandor, and written by Cary Bates and Mark Jones.
I was looking very forward to that.
Hopefully, in the Superman Returns sequel, Brainiac will be the villian. :D

And maybe they'll even use Cary Bates' old script for it.

:s:

A dream Superman movie?  Imagine if...

George Reeves was still alive and active during the mid-80s,

"Superman III" centered on Superman dealing with the unexpected arrival of cousin Kara (what the "Supergirl" movie SHOULD have been), and was successful enough to spin off a "Supergirl" television series...

Now check my earlier post about an Elseworlds story, but have "Earth-2" the same year as "Earth-1" instead of a 1955 Metropolis so the "Adventures of Superman" cast would be older.  Restore the characters names to the originals (no "Christopher Kent"), and also change the 1950s atomic bomb test to another incident involving a nuclear device.

"Superman IV:  Strange Visitor From Another Planet!"

http://superman.nu/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=10133&highlight=#10133

(Otherwise we could keep the 1955-era Earth-2 and turn this plotline into an animated movie with the original actors doing the voices.  Earth-1 would be contemporary animation style while older Earth-2 would be more Fleischer-inspired.)

Sigh... only in my dreams...  :(

This is another casting choice I take brickbats for. And it's my second go at casting Bizarro. My original choice was Errol Flynn, because of his jokester reputation, his desire to break out of the period-film image, and because he looked enough like Tyrone Power that he could easily be made into a deformed clone. I got skinned alive for the idea becauuse "You've turned a great Robin Hood hero into a moron villain!" The attitude was that if Errol Flynn's going to be in a Superman movie, HE should be playing Superman. (My own mother thought I should have picked him and DeHavilland as Superman and Lois instead of Power and Darnell.)

So I replaced him with Hudson, who I figured would be a safer choice because he'd played the fool in so many Doris Day movies. Alas, I got torn apart for casting "a Superman type" as Bizarro. I just can't win with this character....

I remember an old JLA lettercol from the 60s that reported readers' votes for who should play the various heroes in a JLA movie (a purely hypothetical movie of course, but funny to see we're still having similar conversations 40 years later!).  

Anyway, Rock Hudson was the clear favorite to play Superman.

As a huge Flynn fan, I have to agree it would be a waste to make him Bizarro.  Why pay all that money for a super-handsome leading man only to cake his mug in monster make-up?  Plus I can't help thinking he'd take it as an insult to play a supporting role to a rival like Tyrone Power (even if he did do exactly that near the end of his career in "The Sun Also Rises"...stealing the movie in the process, I'm happy to say!).

As long as this is a "dream movie," why not pretend we can combine today's modern effects capabilities with a cast of yesterday's greats?  I say put Rock Hudson in there as Supes AND Bizarro.  They are supposed to be made from the same stuff, after all.  And what actor wouldn't love a chance to hog twice the screen time? :-)

Actually, my dream Superman would have been Guy Williams.  I was recently watching my DVD of the first season of "Lost in Space" and he definitely had the build, the jaw, the eyes (steely and intense when needed, kind and fatherly otherwise) and the hair (thick and black).  In one scene in "Follow the Leader," he even has a black forelock fall down over his brow and I had to freeze the image: "Superman!!"

Tyrone, with his dark brooding looks, I see more as a Batman type.  But you gotta admit the swashbucklers provide a rich candidate pool!

So I guess you would be in the "Errol Flynn should only be in a Superman movie if he's the one playing Superman" camp. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I concede that he could have been a great Superman. It's just that I think Tyrone Power's an even better choice.  :wink:



I would argue against it because the Clark/Supes fight looked awkward to me in Superman III. Having the same guy do a "twins"-like fight scene doesn't come off right in live-action, at least to me. (It's one of those things that animation does better.) And Bizarro's deformity would allow you to get away with casting another actor, and you wouldn't have to rely on split-screen or any other tricks to get the two characters in the same frame. You'd have them bashing each other in-camera, which I think would look better. Especially if, like in Justice #4, Bizarro's not the only one attacking Superman at one time.



There's also screen-shots of Power with a Superman-style forelock, which I have. And the minute I first saw him in Son of Fury as a little kid, my eyes bulged, and I couldn't stop picturing him in the red and blue. The guy looked like he marched right out of the comic book. So from that moment on, there  hasn't been another actor who more perfectly matches Superman in my mind.

As for Batman...Gene Kelly. The look, the athleticism, the dancer's grace and fluidity, his ability to wear colorful tights and not look stupid, and his  energy in the action films he did make clinches it for me. Remind me to post up my Batman and JLA casts some time....

King Krytpon wrote:



I'm in a variant camp: Flynn should not be in a Superman movie at all.  Flynn's all wrong for Superman; it takes more than good looks, broad shoulders and athleticism.  There's a spark to Flynn, a hint of the rogue, a quickness of tongue as well as hand. In short, he's a wiseguy.  Even in his most straight-laced roles, he never becomes the goody-goody hero totally, and I think his personality is more suited to playing, maybe, Green Arrow (no big surprise there).  

Superman should always be played by an American.  In the course of this discussion, I just realized another perfect candidate, a wonderful dramatic actor who also was a professional acrobat and first-rate swashbuckler: Burt Lancaster!  The more I think about it the more I like it.

Yeah, Burt Lancaster as Superman.  Cool.



Well, I'm the wrong one to ask as I'm in no way a Bizarro fan.  He's good for the occasional comic relief, but he was never 100% "villain" in my book, and rarely handled well by any writer, other than Seigel's stuff in the "Bizarro Tales" back-ups.  Any "dream movie" of mine would by definition have to exclude Bizarro.



That's an interesting choice.  At least he beats the one Bob Kane always suggested, which was Robert Wagner.  Hard to imagine what he was thinking there; Wagner always had a baby face, plus he doesn't seem limber enough to play Batman somehow.

I'd have to go with maybe a really young Randolph Scott.  Or for the dream "Dark Knight Returns" movie, Robert Mitchum.

Maybe somewhere in the Multiverse is an alternate Earth where George Reeves won the Oscar and a frustrated actor named Burt Lancaster opened malls in the red-and-blue tights to make ends meet after years of playing Superman on TV. :shock:

Well if we're casting from old stars I think either Lloyd Bridges or Kirk Douglas for Jor-el or Pa Kent.

Since I skipped over the bigger picture earlier, I guess I'd better fill in the blanks while I'm ahead:



The reason I went and cast so many bad guys was to provide some choices for a movie, rather than going with Lex Luthor as a solo act over and over again. My preference would either be a Legion of Doom story or Luthor teaming up with one or more of the baddies in a traitorous alliance, with an established Superman being publically discredited as one of the villains' means to achieving their goals. Something really heavy on the sci-fi/fantasy aspects, with alien invaders, killer robots, global carnage and destruction on a scale dwarfing Lord of the Rings, and a sense that Superman is facing completely unwinnable odds.

The origin would be done in a Bond-style pre-credit sequence or as a text prologue. Jor-El and Lara would likely show up in flashbacks or holographic recordings.

The look? Present day, but filmed to look like the three-strip Technicolor films of Hollywood's Golden Age. Super-saturated color, tremendous contrasts between darkness and light...something very comic book and fantastical. The production design for Bryan Singer's Metropolis is pretty much what I'd want, with creepy, scary-looking sets and equipment for the alien villains. Costumes would be contemporary, with one very notable exception:

(http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/9176/takethatstupidfanboy0qh.jpg)

Like in Birthright, the costume, insignia, and color scheme would be Kryptonian in nature, and in fact the costume would be created by the technology of the Fortress of Solitude. The fabrication of the suit would be much like Singer's (raised emblem, textured fabric and boots, muscle padding for added definition), but other than making the trunks smaller, making the cape longer, and tweaking the belt, it'd look much the same as what you see here. The emblem on Krypton would be the traditional design in red and gold, but on Superman's costume the color scheme would be the Fleischer version, the black being worn in memory of his parents. This image (not my work) is pretty much what it'd look like:

(http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/9484/singermeetsfleischer6dk.jpg)

(And I freely admit, this is the Superman costume I picture Tyrone Power wearing.)

Brainiac would be green-skinned and have electrodes on his head, but his threads would have to be jazzed up. That pink leotard just ain't gonna cut it.

Zod? Black and silver military armor. Not that he needs it, but his vanity demands he keep up appearances.

Darkseid needs to wear pants and a cape. 'Nuff said.

Krypton? A mid-ground between Birthright and the pre-Crisis comics.

Bizarro? Inverse of Superman. Dark, muddy, ugly colors.

Metallo? His chest should be the only part of him with exposed metal. That way he doesn't look like a Terminator ripoff.

Parasite should look like his animated counterpart. That was a terrific costume design.

The music (purely orchestral, with electronics used for special sounds only) would be as triumphant and operatic as any Erich Wolfgang Korngold score...which it would have to be, given the subject matter.

2:40 widescreen, all the better to frame those glorious panoramic shots of Superman in flight.

That's pretty much it.

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Now that was inspired!  Thanks for pointing to the older post - I'm new here and might have missed it.

That was a fun "imaginary story  - but aren't they all"!

My dream superman movie...

WORLD'S FINEST

The Superman meets Batman movie.  I've always prefered the mistrust version of their relationship - where Bats thinks Clark is too open and trusting and Clark isn't sure Bats is on the side of truth and justice.   But they come together and appreciate that these are stylistic differences,  working toward the same cause.

Always want to see the Clark/Bruce meeting at a Wayne Corp function...