Making a Better Superman Returns

[MydnightPhoenix]

More changes I'd make:
1. Make it clear Lois knows Richard is not the father and that Richard knows he is not the biological father.
2. Jason's name is Dylan
3. Have the DP have a daycare on one of their floors and not have Dylan just hanging out at mommies work until late at nite.
And BTW Singer is Superman has been gone 5 yrs then his son is 4 and doesn't go to school and get report cards like a 3rd grader.
4. Change Superman's horrible suit! Those trunks were cut like low rise bikini bottoms!
5. Make Clark more like Cain and Cavill's Clark, not a clown or joke but a real man you would take seriously.
6. Keep Lois saving Superman from drowning
7. Keep Superman going to the hospital
8. Expand the world, SR was just about Metropolis ignoring 99.9% of the rest of the world.
9. Have Superman leave for a better reason than I heard from somebody who has a cousin who has a friend who said Krypton might still be around. Plus he stated he wouldn't leave again at the end of S2.
10. Make clear what the movie wants to be and what of the Donnerverse it is incorporating and ignoring. Did S3 and S4 never happen? Is this a remake of S:TM or a sequel to S2? When did Lois get pregnant the S2 hookup or some other time?

 

[STARMAN]

In one of the early drafts Clark looks at Jason and wonders if something is wrong with him. Jimmy tells Clark that Jason was born prematurely and almost didn't make it. He made it sound like Jason might have a disability.

Anyway, I always enjoyed the Making of Superman Returns featurette Requiem for Krypton more than the actual movie.

 

[Patchwork Man]

Okay, first, Superman needs a good reason to leave in the first place. Second, Superman and Lois weren't together at the end of Superman II.

Correct. And as Peter David said, Superman wouldn't bail on the Earth for six years, anyway. That's not him. ("His unexplained absence was simply cruel.")

The entirety of Returns should have been scrapped at the writing stage in favor of a fresh reboot — which we got anyway, with Man of Steel — since it recycled so much of Superman (1978), and they ended up blowing so much money rendering a kryptonite mountain.

 

[LaughterLives]

Honestly, the one thing that would've made it infinitely better was keeping Bryan Singer away from it or any other comic book movie for that matter.
Singer is a guy who has good ideas but they come with the price of butchering beloved characters and making them unrecognizable. He deconstructs them to tell the story he wants to tell and this what makes him horrible for this genre.
He could've told the same story using original characters but people praise him for ruining them instead of being faithful to them.

Singer was the Mistake from day 1 but as long praise his work, he'll remain a mistake never to be remedied.

 

[BH/HHH]

But going back to when he was put in charge of the project which was I believe 2004, X-Men 2 was a major hit. It's easy to say now he was a wrong but back then he felt like a good choice.

 

[the last son]

Get rid of the kid and having lois with Richard and have a villain to punch for the third act. It desperately needed some action.

 

[GREEN =w= DAY]

For starters, no stupid kid would have made this a much better movie

 

[Khaos]

I don't remember the movie 100%, but i remember that i liked certain elements of it. The main problem was the lack of really good action and the fact that the entire Lex's plan was so stupid and goofy.

 

[MydnightPhoenix]

Back to the actual topic of this discussion; the costume also needed to be redone entirely. Ugly red, a shower curtain for a cape, it compressed any muscle Brandon had, and those god awful low rise trunks were all horrendous. I guess we can't expect more from the guy who gave us the Xmen look, after 4 films the only mutant costume that looks good is Magneto.

 

[TheComicbookKid]

I think if they made Lois Jason's stepmom it would have fixed the story but allowed Singer to tell the story of Lois moving on and what he gave up.

 

[BH/HHH]

Back to the actual topic of this discussion; the costume also needed to be redone entirely. Ugly red, a shower curtain for a cape, it compressed any muscle Brandon had, and those god awful low rise trunks were all horrendous. I guess we can't expect more from the guy who gave us the Xmen look, after 4 films the only mutant costume that looks good is Magneto.

Yeah I don't know why they thought it was a good idea. The cape was probably the worst part in every way. The look of it and the way it attached.

Personally I think he should have literally just done an updated version of the Chris Reeve costume with modern materials. The cape should have been as they did it later on MOS and before in 300.

 

[STARMAN]

Probably the worst cape ever. Costume design was done by Louise Mingenbach. I'm not crazy about her X-Men costumes either.

 

[Boy Scout]

I think if they made Lois Jason's stepmom it would have fixed the story but allowed Singer to tell the story of Lois moving on and what he gave up.

The suggestion still would've been that Lois and Superman would've eventually gotten back together, so Lois would've looked like a horrible person for abandoning her husband AND step-child for a man who left her.

I still don't think the suit was that bad. They certainly could've done better, but it wasn't terrible.

 

[STARMAN]

You can overcome a bad costume. You can't overcome a bad script.

 

[TheComicbookKid]

The suggestion still would've been that Lois and Superman would've eventually gotten back together, so Lois would've looked like a horrible person for abandoning her husband AND step-child for a man who left her.

I still don't think the suit was that bad. They certainly could've done better, but it wasn't terrible.

No Richard dies.

The whole point of that story was repeating Johnathan and Martha adopting of a superson. But now it's reversed with Superman having a normal son.

 

[TheComicbookKid]

SR had the same problem as MOS/BvS when it comes to superman IMO, namely the film gave us our first mopey, emo, dialogue challenged superman of the 20th century and that IMO is what sank the movie. Superman was a cardboard cutup of a character with zero charisma and so no one gave a hoot about the character and the challenges that it faced.
.

The reason this has plagued both versions is cause Superman never looks relaxed at being Superman so we never feel like, wow I want to hang out with this guy since Donners. The reason it looks odd to see a big smile under Batman's cowl is it breaks the intimidating image. Superman is the exact opposite. They need to take a cue from what Morrison said about the cover of All Star Superman.

 

[Osiris-Rex]

The reason this has plagued both versions is cause Superman never looks relaxed at being Superman so we never feel like, wow I want to hang out with this guy since Donners. The reason it looks odd to see a big smile under Batman's cowl is it breaks the intimidating image. Superman is the exact opposite. They need to take a cue from what Morrison said about the cover of All Star Superman.

I've been saying that for years. Superman should be the big, friendly guy who reaches out his hand to help and smiles at you, like it's going to be okay buddy, I got you.
Like Dean Cain's or Tyler Hoechlin's Superman. Not someone who acts like you have cooties when he is trying to save you. That's what I've hated about the latest movie versions.

 

[Mandon Knight]

Upon release I loved SR, and still, despite all, I have a very soft spot for it, to this day. It looks like a Superman film, in places, feels like a Superman film and has an overall 'woozy' feel of the earlier Donner films (a key aim of Returns, clearly).

However, when the gloss of waiting SOOO long for a new Superman film had sunk in, the reality hits home.

At it's core is a very clear, defining notion that would NEVER happen (but appreciate it had too, IF this film's narrative was to work) is that Superman would never leave earth for that period of time to defend itself, no matter the reason.

So, if you go against that reasoning, the entire film's story falls apart.

Some of the casting is woeful, Bosworth is SO out of place it's untrue, too young to be playing the Lois of this story and has zero heart, of any kind, to Clark or Superman.

Routh though is for me, excellent in what he is given and asked to deliver.

How do you make it better ? The timing of it's release, too near to Nolan's trilogy for any risks to be taken so it latched onto Donner and what had gone before, would Routh had been served better in this new DCEU era ? Cavill has now made the role his own, IMO, so who know's.

A curiosity of a film really, one that I will have to watch again soon to truely appreciate it's part in the charcter's history.

 

[Osiris-Rex]

It was sort of the bridge between the light hearted Donner movies and the dark, depressing Snyder movies.

 

[BH/HHH]

I still don't think making it a (vague) sequel to the Donnerverse wasn't the problem. They just had to make a good movie. An action spectacle, a film that actually felt like it existed in the Donnerverse without pilfering dialogue and moments from the original films. Do what they did on Supergirl and make references to things that happened, e.g, the earthquake set off by Lex Luthor, etc. Actually go through with the comments by Singer claiming the previous films we vague history and bring things to the modern age while still accoeting that the previous films happened. People wanted to see Superman throw down with someone, they should have given us a villain like Metallo or someone that could truly go toe to toe with the Man of Steel.

So my pitch is this, keeping in mind certain elements of what Singer had suggested:

- make it a vague sequel to the Donnerverse
- Keep the crystalline Fortress of Solitude
- Make the Superman costume the same as Christopher Reeve's with updated materials
- Make Clark less bumbling pretty much how they did in Supermam Returns
- Let Routh have some space to put his own take on the character, same as Tyler Hoechlin did.
- Start the film off with a crime been committed which Superman stops, introducing is to our new Superman
- Then move to the Daily Planet where we meet Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and Perry White
- Lex Luthor is in prison, General Lane comes to him with an offer of a full pardon in exchange for his services. Lex asks for his fortune back he made from his criminal wrong doings in exchange. Lane says no so Lex declines.
- Lane has someone else build him a robot for combat. They decide to test it on Superman.
- Superman is lured to a fire somewhere and the robot engages. Superman easily dispatches the robot. Lane realises he needs Lex.
- Lane agrees with Lex's earlier demands aslong as Lex can help them with there robot problem and the alien who he doesn't trust.
- The classic love triangle Superman-Lois-Clark
- Lex rebrands himself as the CEO of his new company LexCorp which starts off as just a science development company.
- Lex creates Metallo a machine that needs to be piloted, John Corben offers his services
- The more Corben tests the machine the more crazy he gets
- Superman defeats Corben in the machine but the results are bad as the machine malfunctions causing Corben to nearly die. The army attacks Superman after and he's unable to rush Corben to the hospital and a bullet bounces off Superman and punctures Corben's chest.
- Lex saves Corbens life turning him into a living machine via Kryptonite
- Superman again defeats Metallo, this time the army realise he isn't an enemy
- General Lane is in trouble but Lex has double crossed him and got his pardon anyway.
- the film ends with Superman telling Lex he'll be watching him.


Cast
Brandon Routh as Clark Kent / Superman
Rachel McAdams as Lois Lane
Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor
Kate Bosworth as Mercy Greaves
Frank Langella as Perry White
Sam Huntington as Jimmy Olsen
Ed Harris as General Lane
Kevin Bacon as John Corben

There's more to my idea but I'd need to have time to develop it.

 

[Osiris-Rex]

I like it. Sad when the fans have more imagination than the people that get paid to write movies.

 

[MydnightPhoenix]

The suggestion still would've been that Lois and Superman would've eventually gotten back together, so Lois would've looked like a horrible person for abandoning her husband AND step-child for a man who left her.

Yes I agree, this step mother idea would make her look even more horrible than the semi "who's your baby daddy" scenario in SR. If the son is staying on then Axe Richard instead so Superman/Clark stepping in doesn't displace anyone else.

 

[BH/HHH]

I like it. Sad when the fans have more imagination than the people that get paid to write movies.

Thanks.

I think it boils down to us having a connection to the comics and/or even animated stuff. We know what we want.

 

[STARMAN]

It seems like they constantly chose screenwriters who have no affection for the character. It's simply an assignment.

 

[BH/HHH]

It seems like they constantly chose screenwriters who have no affection for the character. It's simply an assignment.

That's one of things that actually made me sad watching the Death of Superman Lives... no one seemed to be that excited to be making a Superman movie apart from a select few.