Should the death of Superman be in a hypothetical new trilogy?

[Timstuff]

The Death of Superman is probably the most well known Superman story arch there is, and there have been several failed attempts to bring it into live action, the first being the rather infamous "Superman Lives," and the second being JJ Abrams' attempt. The problem is that both of these projects wanted to deal with the death an return of Superman within a single film, and frankly I think that this is not a good way to do it justice. And you certainly cannot have it in the first movie, because then you end up with a very front loaded trilogy. If you want to truly do Superman's death and return justice, I think that it has to be more like this:

Movie 1: Superman's origin, defeat semi-major villain

Movie 2: Superman vs. Doomsday. Climax is fight to the death with Doomsday, and Superman dies.

Movie 3: Superman returns from the dead, defeats major villain

Is the death of Superman too much for live action, or is the world ready for it? After 5 movies of Gene Hackman running real-estate scams, I think people are ready for a new angle on the Superman mythos, but would seeing Superman die in a film be too dark, especially if he does not return until the next movie? And would it potentially deprive them from exploring better story options?

 

[Kurosawa]

Personally I'd go with something along the lines of Birthright for part 1, Brainiac for 2 and All-Star Superman for 3.

 

[Rust]

I'm all for a very different and aggressive approach, especially if we're given a trilogy.

Otherwise, they should just jump stright to it with a humungous villain.

 

[GreenKToo]

Giving the situation WB is in, not knowing FOR SURE if they will keep the rights after 2013 or not, I would expect this film to have the kinda action that you would normally see in a sequel.

 

[Timstuff]

Giving the situation WB is in, not knowing FOR SURE if they will keep the rights after 2013 or not, I would expect this film to have the kinda action that you would normally see in a sequel.

Yes, but I doubt we're going to see Doomsday or Superman's death in what will probably be the first in a trilogy. We'll probably get sock kickass fights from a villain like Metallo or Brainiac, but if you make a movie with Doomsday, who people know to be the villain who killed Superman, they're going to expect an epic battle to the death. If you start a trilogy with Doomsday, either you have to show Superman beat Doomsday without dying, or you have to kill Superman and bring him back in chapter 1, which would make it feel very anti-climactic.

 

[Kurosawa]

Yes, but I doubt we're going to see Doomsday or Superman's death in what will probably be the first in a trilogy. We'll probably get sock kickass fights from a villain like Metallo or Brainiac, but if you make a movie with Doomsday, who people know to be the villain who killed Superman, they're going to expect an epic battle to the death. If you start a trilogy with Doomsday, either you have to show Superman beat Doomsday without dying, or you have to kill Superman and bring him back in chapter 1, which would make it feel very anti-climactic.

To be honest to give the Death and Return of Superman a proper adaptation it would take two films at least, maybe even 3. I'm a Pre-Crisis guy but that story is just massively epic.

 

[Timstuff]

It's not like it needs to be adapted page-for-page the way Watchmen was. The big thing is that Superman needs to fight with Doomsday to the death, die, and then come back to live and deal with what's happened while he was gone. The important thing is that they keep the soul of the story in tact, with the world grieving over the loss of its protector, and especially the way those closest to Superman deal with it.

 

[Kurosawa]

I think the Return is a better story than the Death to be honest. There's no reason to half-ass it.

 

[TruerToTheCore]

One of my problems with the story arc was that the post-crisis Superman just didn't seem to be important enough to spawn such a big reaction to his death. Let's be honest, he was just one of many costumed heroes. That said, the whole thing was very entertaining, but it wouldn't work as a movie. The most interesting thing was the successors, but the movie is supposed to be about Superman, not some impostors.

 

[Timstuff]

I think Superman Doomsday showed that you can write a story about the death of Superman without doing a page-by-page adaptation of the comic. It was not perfect, but then again that movie's problems went beyond just the story. The imposters may have been the most interesting part to some readers of the comics, but to our culture the Death of Superman arc will always be about Superman falling in battle, and the world mourning and trying to adjust to a world without Superman.

That aspect of the story was one of the few that transcended from just comic fandom and into mainstream pop culture, which is why that's the part of the story that I think would be worth bringing into a film, let alone that the imposers part of the story is pretty much unfilmable. It makes sense why for the Superman Doomsday DVD they decided to trim it down to Superman just fighting one imposter, and frankly I think that a Superman imposter can be replaced with just about any of Superman's rogues causing trouble.

 

[true316]

It isn't what I would want but I could see them going that route. At least it would have good action.

 

[Alonsovich]

Enough with this Death storyline, please. It's exactly the reason why all this Superman movie attempts have been a mess since 1993. Let's focus on making a good, straight to the point Superman film that is successful... then when that happens we can discuss this one, because the last successful Superman film was a really long time ago.

 

[elgaz]

I've always loved the Death of Superman storyline, it is truly epic in scope and if properly adapted could make for a superb trilogy.

It's also shaped in such a way that the arguable climax (Superman fighting Doomsday and eventually dying) would actually happen in the second film, which is traditionally the plodding part of any trilogy reserved for progressing the storyline. The danger there is that the third film is then somewhat of an anticlimax.

The only way around that, IMO, is to modify the story slightly so that Doomsday - the villain of the #2 film - is driven or controlled by the main villain from the #3 film, rather than just being a mindless beast as per the comics. This serves to represent the #3 villain as superior to the one beforehand. I'm not sure how the whole Doomsday backstory (genetically modified and hates Superman as he represents centuries of hurt by Kryptonian scientists) would be transferred successfully to the big screen anyhow.

But yes, it would make for a good trilogy - there is scope for a story with lots of action, lots of emotion, and lots of what-ifs - how does the world react to their hero dying?

 

[Mr. Earle]

I never liked this story. Its just some monster that comes down and beats Superman to death. He dies and some half assed replacements take his place. Then he miraculously comes back to life. It was just shock and awe without much substance.

The reason they killed Superman was to bring something new to the table after 70 years of stories and to give us a break from him while some other characters do his job. To show what would happen if he died, who would replace him and so on. Why would you do that in the movies when we've never had a good one in decades? There are so many SM stories to draw inspiration from before jumping to the mindless shock and awe death story.

If they go with the Doomsday story it will be like ROTF where Prime was absent for most of the movie. They should only do that if they've already made a few movies and set up a supporting superhero cast that we care about that will take over once he dies. Say after 5 movies Superman dies and in the sixth we have Supergirl and Mon-El standing in for him, till he comes back at the end of the it.

That i'd like to watch. Otherwise, say if its just a trilogy, i'd rather they go the All-Star route and end it in a similar optimistic way.

 

[MadVillainy]

I dont think they should cover the death of Superman