Batman and Superman were my favorite superheroes when I was a young boy and they are my favorite good guys as a 36 year-old father-of-two. I can still remember being at the drive-in theater and watching, mouth wide open, Christopher Reeve done the blue suit and red cape and soar to the top of The Daily Planet to rescue Lois Lane. When we got home, I safety-pinned a maroon towel around my neck, donned my blue pajamas (complete with underpants over the bottoms), slapped on my cowboy boots and rescued my sister Jeannie from certain death. I can also remember hoping that Bryan Singer’s 2006 Superman Returns would bring glory once again to the Man of Steel. Sadly, despite the best intentions, it was not to be. Superman Returns just couldn’t quite snag the critical and commercial success that Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins had garnered a year earlier.
Flash forward to 2010 and we now have the Superman franchise being rebooted once more, something studios are more apt to do since 2008’s The Incredible Hulk was able to erase the memory of the Ang Lee debacle, Hulk, five years prior. The new Superman film will be titled, wait for it, Superman: Man of Steel, and is helmed by 300 director, Zack Snyder. As I said before, I like this move by Warner Brothers and, frankly, anything that Christopher Nolan endorses (see: touches and turns to gold) gets my stamp of approval also. Nolan could have picked Uwe Boll to direct and I would have put my trust in his vision.
This is the long way of saying Snyder has found his Superman/Clark Kent in British actor Henry Cavill. Cavill is an unknown to me, but fans of Showtime’s The Tudors probably know him quite well from the character, Charles Brandon, he played from 2007-2010. You might also recognize Cavill from The Count of Monte Cristo or Stardust. And while this might seem like minor news, it’s big enough to have Entertainment Weekly throw Cavill up on the cover of this week’s issue. I don’t know about you, but the square-jawed Cavill gets my vote.
What we don’t know is much about the plot and story of Superman: The Man of Steel. There were early rumors of General Zod returning to battle Supes, and now there are whisperings that Lindsay Lohan will be joining the cast as the evil Kryptonian temptress, Ursa, or, as some on the web have gossiped, as Lois Lane. I don’t doubt that Lohan is a talented actress; I loved her in Mean Girls, but I can’t imagine Snyder adding a walking sideshow to a film the studio can’t afford to botch again. I’m sure we’ll get more casting news soon, but for now, I put my faith in Nolan and trust this new Superman movie will be, hopefully, the best one yet.
Superman: The Man of Steel is due to hit theaters in December 2012.
