The Official Jimmy Olsen Casting & Discussion Thread

[Superman2007]

why is everyone suggesting guys for jimmy that look like they belong in twilight?

Why is everyone looking 16?

I understand the character in the comics is supposedly young, I've never read them really, but is that something that people actually like? The fact that he is that young?

Does that even really fit in the Goyer/Snyder/Nolan world? That in 2012-13 when the movie airs or is set in, that there is actually room in the competitive business world for a 16 year old with a camera to be working in a newspaper that is supposed to be a top-notch paper?

Is that realistic in today's world with today's economy?

Can the character look young? Sure, but should he look 16 like some of the characters suggested here?

And honestly, I wouldn't want a guy that makes me chuckle just by looking at him.

Very good points...I like that Superman Earth One made him an older, more credible photo-journalist.

 

[Rodrigo90]

I'm not a fan of the older Jimmy. It makes him look socially inept. It's still Jimmy Olsen - the clown so to speak, but I'd say having him older makes him look sad around his peers. I cringe at Sam Huntington in SR. Younger is better IMO.

 

[Superman_20]

Very good points...I like that Superman Earth One made him an older, more credible photo-journalist.

I did read that and I liked that he looks credible. If I could have any actor play him it would be Paul Dano. 27 years old but looks younger, and looks younger than Cavill but it is also believable that he may be in his mid-late 20's like Jimmy should be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpMNoJVA9gk&feature=related

 

[Kurosawa]

why is everyone suggesting guys for jimmy that look like they belong in twilight?

Why is everyone looking 16?

I understand the character in the comics is supposedly young, I've never read them really, but is that something that people actually like? The fact that he is that young?

Does that even really fit in the Goyer/Snyder/Nolan world? That in 2012-13 when the movie airs or is set in, that there is actually room in the competitive business world for a 16 year old with a camera to be working in a newspaper that is supposed to be a top-notch paper?

Is that realistic in today's world with today's economy?

Can the character look young? Sure, but should he look 16 like some of the characters suggested here?

And honestly, I wouldn't want a guy that makes me chuckle just by looking at him.

Realism has no business being in Superman. Jimmy Olsen is supposed to be a kid reporter, he should be a kid reporter. No Twilight looking guys but a young, eager, awkward looking ginger kid would be great. These characters should either be who they were to created to be or not be used at all. If Jimmy Olsen can't be Jimmy Olsen-bow tie, signal watch and all-then just don't even bother creating a new character and calling him Jimmy Olsen. They might as well just use Ron Troupe if they want a serious young reporter character played completely straight without any humor or fun.

 

[Superman2007]

Realism has no business being in Superman.

This is how movies like "Batman and Robin" get made. If you have a Superhero movie without any realism, you have a superhero movie that wont be taken seriously.
A superhero film with any relatable characters or elements wont have an audience.

 

[Rodrigo90]

This is how movies like "Batman and Robin" get made. If you have a Superhero movie any realism, you have a superhero movie that wont be taken seriously.
A superhero film with any relatable characters or elements wont have an audience.

I'd say seriousness is more important in these cases.

 

[Superman_20]

I'm not a fan of the older Jimmy. It makes him look socially inept. It's still Jimmy Olsen - the clown so to speak, but I'd say having him older makes him look sad around his peers. I cringe at Sam Hunnighton in SR. Younger is better IMO.

That is another thing that should be changed. He should not socially inept, he should be outgoing and yes, well spoken, clever, and he should not be a joke, but rather a character. He should be a normal everyday young man, that happens to be smart and happens to be outgoing. It isn't that rare for a guy to be both smart and outgoing. They don't have to make him a punchline, or make him a joke or give him corny things to say just so people watching chuckle and say "hey there is Jimmy"....

I think if I went to any university in the country, I could find at least 10 guys that could play Jimmy. That is how I picture Jimmy. If he has to be funny, he'd be like just one of your friends that has a sense of humor. But any guy who is young, and has a sense of humor should not be a misfit. He should be well-liked. He should have no problems getting a date, and he shouldn't be a weirdo.

He should be a young man (in his 20s like Paul Dano) who happens to be smart, charismatic, and if necessary for the script, funny in a charming way. Not in a cartoon-ish, corny, stupid, campy kind of way.

 

[Superman2007]

I'd say seriousness is more important in these cases.

Yeah well if has realism whatsoever and is not relatable at all, you're going to be hard-pressed to find anyone taking it seriously.

 

[Kurosawa]

This is how movies like "Batman and Robin" get made. If you have a Superhero movie without any realism, you have a superhero movie that wont be taken seriously.
A superhero film with any relatable characters or elements wont have an audience.

Superman is different from Batman or Iron Man.

Nolan's Batman movies are as absurd in their own way as any other superhero movie. The best trained special forces agent in the world would be a vegetable by the end of a Nolan Batman movie. Superman movies should not be realistic; even the Reeve ones were too realistic, mostly due to effects constraints of the times. Superman movies should be pure fantasy, more along the lines of Avatar but even more fantastic than that. Into that world you can drop the fairly believable city of Metropolis, but Nolan's Batman films should never be the goal for Superman.

 

[Project862006]

if you want an older jimmy i say get Joseph Mazzello(Social Network,Pacific) he is 27 and convincingly played a college student in Social Network

 

[Kurosawa]

That is another thing that should be changed. He should not socially inept, he should be outgoing and yes, well spoken, clever, and he should not be a joke, but rather a character. He should be a normal everyday young man, that happens to be smart and happens to be outgoing. It isn't that rare for a guy to be both smart and outgoing. They don't have to make him a punchline, or make him a joke or give him corny things to say just so people watching chuckle and say "hey there is Jimmy"....

I think if I went to any university in the country, I could find at least 10 guys that could play Jimmy. That is how I picture Jimmy. If he has to be funny, he'd be like just one of your friends that has a sense of humor. But any guy who is young, and has a sense of humor should not be a misfit. He should be well-liked. He should have no problems getting a date, and he shouldn't be a weirdo.

He should be a young man (in his 20s like Paul Dano) who happens to be smart, charismatic, and if necessary for the script, funny in a charming way. Not in a cartoon-ish, corny, stupid, campy kind of way.

Then just don't use Jimmy. Passing off a character as Jimmy Olsen that bears no resemblance to what the character was created to be amounts to lying to the audience IMO. Use Ron Troupe instead and don't even address Jimmy.

 

[Superman_20]

Realism has no business being in Superman. Jimmy Olsen is supposed to be a kid reporter, he should be a kid reporter. No Twilight looking guys but a young, eager, awkward looking ginger kid would be great. These characters should either be who they were to created to be or not be used at all. If Jimmy Olsen can't be Jimmy Olsen-bow tie, signal watch and all-then just don't even bother creating a new character and calling him Jimmy Olsen. They might as well just use Ron Troupe if they want a serious young reporter character played completely straight without any humor or fun.

If you make is just like the comics, you will make a movie that is too over the top. There are different interpretations of the same characters in comic books and in a movie it should be the same. It is a movie based on a comic book. Characters have some changes made to them, especially supporting characters.

If they want to set in a realistic world, with Superman being the outsider, how is Jimmy going to be a realistic kid reporter. That was just an element added in the comics most likely to attract younger readers because they thought that might work. Just because something is in a comic doesn't mean it has to be in the movies and in fact, it doesn't even mean it SHOULD be in the comics.

Characters always have some changes done to them for movies, because some comic book things in a movie would probably be painful to watch.

Read the Jurassic Park book and watch the movie. The lawyer was never as wimpy as he was in the movie and the one asking for the park to be available to everyone was the lawyer, not the creator of the park. Why did they turn the lawyer into a wimp? Because they thought it would be funny (when in fact it was just painful to watch).

If you make characters into human cartoons (like the lawyer) you wind up with characters that are just painful to watch.

 

[Kurosawa]

If you make is just like the comics, you will make a movie that is too over the top. There are different interpretations of the same characters in comic books and in a movie it should be the same. It is a movie based on a comic book. Characters have some changes made to them, especially supporting characters.

If they want to set in a realistic world, with Superman being the outsider, how is Jimmy going to be a realistic kid reporter. That was just an element added in the comics most likely to attract younger readers because they thought that might work. Just because something is in a comic doesn't mean it has to be in the movies and in fact, it doesn't even mean it SHOULD be in the comics.

Characters always have some changes done to them for movies, because some comic book things in a movie would probably be painful to watch.

Read the Jurassic Park book and watch the movie. The lawyer was never as wimpy as he was in the movie and the one asking for the park to be available to everyone was the lawyer, not the creator of the park. Why did they turn the lawyer into a wimp? Because they thought it would be funny (when in fact it was just painful to watch).

If you make characters into human cartoons (like the lawyer) you wind up with characters that are just painful to watch.

Imagine if Peter Jackson treated the characters and situations from LOTR with the contempt that people want comics to be treated with.

Glad he didn't.

 

[Superman2007]

if you want an older jimmy i say get Joseph Mazzello(Social Network,Pacific) he is 27 and convincingly played a college student in Social Network

He'd be perfect! He's old enough, has a decent look, and is a good actor.

 

[Rodrigo90]

Yeah well if has realism whatsoever and is not relatable at all, you're going to be hard-pressed to find anyone taking it seriously.

Look at Star Wars. It was unrealistic, but it took itself seriously. People could relate and be immersed in the story and characters.

B&R had nothing going for it. It took itself as a joke, and so it was to everyone else.

 

[Superman_20]

Superman is different from Batman or Iron Man.

Nolan's Batman movies are as absurd in their own way as any other superhero movie. The best trained special forces agent in the world would be a vegetable by the end of a Nolan Batman movie. Superman movies should not be realistic; even the Reeve ones were too realistic, mostly due to effects constraints of the times. Superman movies should be pure fantasy, more along the lines of Avatar but even more fantastic than that. Into that world you can drop the fairly believable city of Metropolis, but Nolan's Batman films should never be the goal for Superman.

The city should be believable but so should the people of the city. The only character that is supposed to be the fantasy is Superman and the villains that he attracts to the Earth inadvertently by him simply being on Earth. That makes it more realistic. It should be about how normal people react to an/a abnormal creature(s). Not how all these characters are strange and over-the-top with 16 year old reports and here comes another odd-ball from space and other alien weirdos. If audiences wanted so much humor and weird places and so much fantasy, then Green Lantern would have been a hit.

Avatar is set in a real world with characters that are in another world, and Avatar is not joking around with campy characters, and the humans in the movie are not campy. They are actually pretty realistic portraits of humans.

Look at Star Wars. It was unrealistic, but it took itself seriously. People could relate and be immersed in the story and characters.

B&R had nothing going for it. It took itself as a joke, and so it was to everyone else.

But Star Wars is not set in a city in the U.S. like Superman is. That is the difference. If it is set in an alien world (where miraculously everyone speaks English, fine) but the action doesn't all take place on Earth. Superman takes place in a major city in the U.S.

 

[Superman2007]

Imagine if Peter Jackson treated the characters and situations from LOTR with the contempt that people want comics to be treated with.

Glad he didn't.

Everything in Lord of the Rings is fantastical.

The only fantastical element of a Superman story is usually just his powers and sometimes a villain he's up against. The rest of his story, to work on film, needs to be realistic
Also did you say the Reeve films were realistic? What was realistic about Richard Pryor falling off the top of a sky scraper but landing perfectly ON SKIS!!! Don't want that see that type of Superman movie ever again.

 

[Kurosawa]

Look at Star Wars. It was unrealistic, but it took itself seriously. People could relate and be immersed in the story and characters.

B&R had nothing going for it. It took itself as a joke, and so it was to everyone else.

Yes, and that is how Superman should be approached. Not realistic, but it should be played straight-with humor when appropriate, but avoiding all aspects of a parody. Harry Potter is the other great example. Nothing realistic about it, but people buy into it 100% because the story and characters matter. This is the way to do Superman.

 

[Superman2007]

Look at Star Wars. It was unrealistic, but it took itself seriously. People could relate and be immersed in the story and characters.

B&R had nothing going for it. It took itself as a joke, and so it was to everyone else.

At the risk of sounding like a lunatic...Star Wars is realistic, since it starts with the conceit that its all happening "long ago, in a galaxy far, far away." There is so much we don't about space, because it is infinite, so with that being the basis we can absorb everything that's going on. Now, if they set Star Wars in our solar system, in present day, then that would be unrealistic. Because we know that it's not the case that everything in Star Wars is happening or could possibly happen, in our world.

 

[Superman_20]

Everything in Lord of the Rings is fantastical.

The only fantastical element of a Superman story is usually just his powers and sometimes a villain he's up against. The rest of his story, to work on film, needs to be realistic
Also did you say the Reeve films were realistic? What was realistic about Richard Pryor falling off the side of the top off a sky scraper but landing perfectly ON SKIS!!! Don't want that see that type of Superman movie ever again.

Exactly, or eating ice-cream when being flown halfway across the street by a hurricane or acting like an imbecile and having people not notice that you act like one until you happen to say "swell" and which one of you has ever had a boss that was as over the top as Perry White in the Reeve movies? Or heard of a criminal as campy and corny as Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor or seen that is so easy to get the ARMY to get distracted by a girl leaving all their weapons standing around? Or ever heard of a criminal like Gene Hackman's camp Luthor with Ottis? Or memory erasing kisses, building up the Wall of China by looking at it or a nuclear man born in the sun who speaks English and was born dressed? Who also expects that an alien world speaks English with a hint of a British accent?

Please, no more of that, if you liked that, then watch the Reeve movies again but the majority of people did not like those aspects of the movies. Did I see them? Obviously, but does that mean that there are not MANY things that could have been done differently?

 

[Superman_20]

Everything in Lord of the Rings is fantastical.

Exactly, if the setting for the entire world that the character lives in is fantastical, then fine. But Superman is set in Earth, with normal people, with no Goblins or creeps and magic. It is Earth, an alien arrives, and other alien forces arrive after him. That is all.

 

[Astrodust]

They need someone short for Jimmy. 5'6'' tops.

 

[Rodrigo90]

Star Wars is realistic in it's own enviroment, yeah. To our society, it isn't. But it's certainly plausible in how things are handled within the story, the characters,etc. I'm sure someone out there in life can relate to Luke and Vader

Superman isn't meant to be realistic, even Nolan couldn't pull that off. If he did, Supes would be a guy on a jetpack with a hero complex XD. I think (God help me) Independence Day is something that should be looked at for inspiration, minus the cliche characters.

 

[Denny67]

Anton Yelchin

Michael Cera

Johnny Simmons

Patrick Fugit

Just depending on what you want out of the character.

 

[WarriorDreamer]

Well the thing is Jimmy was never supposed to be particulary 'cool'. Like as soon as you make him older and a hit with the ladies, good at fighting and so on he doesn't make as much of a sidekick to Superman.

He supposed to still have some of that innocence and youthfulness so I would say he should be about 21 or 22. (Since considering our Clark and Lois are gonna be about 31)

I think he should be portrayed as a little less goofy than before, just a smart optimistic kid really. I think the portrayal in secret origin was pretty good for a modern Jimmy.