You're an unbelievable writer Trip. Great speech right there. Can we send it to Warner, Snyder, Nolan, etc ? ;0)
Aw, thanks Bruce, but I've had a lot of practice pulling out my Tom-is-perfect-for-the-feature-role-of-Superman spiel, it's only been perfected over the past five or six years....
Seriously, however, I think it makes a ton of good business sense to hire him and they need to do it right now.
Warners needs to get his name on a contract before he starts fielding other offers now that he'll be free of his huge comittment to Smallville come mid- to late-April.
I would just add the being relatable factor that is very important on the success of Superman or I dare say in every super-hero movie ever made (if you don't believe me, ask Marvel).
Everytime Superman is portrayed as an invincible God whether on comics, tv or movies, it fails big time. One of the big reasons of Tom and Smallville's sucess is how (for all their wrongs) they portrayal the character the right way, as the most human of us all.
People from around the world relate to Tom's Clark/Blur/Superman and that is why they want him so badly to be cast. The general audience that doesn't know or care about the show will follow on if they relate/connect with Superman. Superman only works if the lead actor makes you believe (I don't care how good the movie is or how big the action is) and Tom makes ppl believe in Superman again.
Put another actor in the suit and the excuse (when all else fails) like Billy said will be that the world doesn't believe in Superman anymore. Not true. They just don't believe in Supermen they don't care or relate to.
I think you're right.
I think the beauty of Tom's performance as Clark is that he has shown us that Superman isn't all that different from the rest of us and he is more humane than most of humanity.
If the feature Superman can take that sort of portrayal and move forward instead of looking back 30 or so years, I think they'll probably do a lot better than SR did in terms of creating a compelling story with characters that people care about.
I think it cannot be said enough that all the individual issues with SR aside, that film's biggest failure was almost none of the characters were likable. I almost left the theatre about halfway through when I realized that I didn't care one bit about what happened to any of them. The only reason I stayed was because I had my kids with me.
Smallville's Clark is flawed and a lot of people point at that and say that he's not Superman because of that, but it's his flaws and insecurities that make him relateable.
I love Smallville's take on the character and I hope they have Clark be flawed and falliable, not god-like and perfect.
Even if Tom were in the film, I'm not sure I'd feel good about that sort of portrayal.
I see him (if he's smart enough with his choices and is lucky with the kind of material he's offered) in time going more on the same route that Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio have gone. He also can't be too risky and totally alienate his fan base with parts that are too radical. Christopher Reeve tried to do that and it didn't work well for him.
But I can see Tom doing all genres, pure comedy, romantic comedy, action, thriller, science fiction, drama, etc. And of course directing.
If they offer him the role of Superman, I'm pretty sure Warner (or even his agent will try to get it for him) will sweeten the deal by adding a few non-Superman pictures to the contract.
I think Christopher Reeve's attempts to distance himself from such an iconic came off as forced or awkward. I don't think it's the risks themselves that caused those roles to not be successful for him. While I think Chris was a good actor, his range wasn't very broad, and by pushing himself into roles that were different he ended up in roles that weren't well suited for him.
I don't think that's a problem that Tom has. In Smallville he's shown that he has a huge acting range.
He's played comedy, romance, action as well as believably portraying heroes and and villains.
I think no matter what he does, he will probably surprise people with his choices.
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