Shane
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Post by Shane on Oct 23, 2012 3:06:11 GMT -5
i was referring to myself as a loser as well key haha nice post i will shut up now
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Knight
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Post by Knight on Oct 23, 2012 6:06:06 GMT -5
Interesting idea, wouldn't that be something! Cant believe I never imagined that possibility myself. Hmmm
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Metallo
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Post by Metallo on Dec 15, 2012 12:44:34 GMT -5
I feel kinda stupid for just now considering this but I was watching Superman II recently and I wondered if Singer and co. got the idea of Jor-El's image being projected in the crystals in Superman Returns from the way we saw Lara in Superman II?
Its one thing I liked in II and Superman Returns because the big floating head sometimes looked a little dodgy (ZORDON) to me unless it was done really well like when Clark first sees Jor-El in STM. It always looked best with a kind f soft glow, transparency, and blurred edges. The way it was done in the Donner Cut of II just looked awful to me.
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Metallo
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Post by Metallo on Dec 15, 2012 12:47:28 GMT -5
If he hasn't introduced you to Poison Ivy, he's not much of a friend. But...he might get crotch itch...
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theoj
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Post by theoj on Dec 23, 2012 20:35:14 GMT -5
They should have made two SR films back to back with the 2nd one released the following summer, introducing a super villain and a whole lot of action.
That would have impressed the new generations of fans, brought in big bucks at the box office and given a reason for the slow and downbeat introduction of the first film, without making it seem disappointing, but making it feel more like the bridge to the excitement of the 2nd movie.
It would seem more like one big story split into two films... Like BTTF 2&3 or Pirates 2&3 (perhaps bad comparisons), but I still loved much of SR and feel it (and especially Routh) deserved a sequel.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 24, 2012 1:23:04 GMT -5
Oh, for damn sure. While, of course, I'm dying to see MOS, I'm always going to be so curious about what the sequel to SR would've been like. If it ever actually happened, I honestly bet it would've been awesome. Ah well.
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atp
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Post by atp on Dec 24, 2012 2:09:28 GMT -5
They should have made two SR films back to back with the 2nd one released the following summer, introducing a super villain and a whole lot of action. That would have impressed the new generations of fans, brought in big bucks at the box office and given a reason for the slow and downbeat introduction of the first film, without making it seem disappointing, but making it feel more like the bridge to the excitement of the 2nd movie. It would seem more like one big story split into two films... Like BTTF 2&3 or Pirates 2&3 (perhaps bad comparisons), but I still loved much of SR and feel it (and especially Routh) deserved a sequel. Definitely agree with this. The incremental cost of doing this probably wouldn't have been that much.
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Dec 24, 2012 11:43:10 GMT -5
Always felt SR was just the re-introduction and an amazing bridge to keep the Donner material as 'canon' and yet move forward. Instead- SR gets slammed as a 'ripoff', and never quite got its due, and I don't know if it ever will. People are just too divided on the tone of the film and if it fit the character or not. I wish it had been a situation similar to New Line offering Jackson the opportunity to do a TRILOGY back to back with Singer in charge, but... it doesn't seem like (on the surface anyways- who knows if attaching oneself to many projects is smarter than a couple that might fall through?) Singer stays with projects that long. If filmed back to back, though, you'd think the costs wouldn't be all that much--- but, maybe WB just thought it might run into the same problems that STM/SII had..... who knows? Sadly, after following the story of whether or not SR II would get a greenlight of not for years, it seems like "Valkyrie"'s extended shooting was what helped kill that small window of opportunity to get SR II done, before WB seemed to change their minds completely. Oh well.
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Post by Valentine Smith on Dec 24, 2012 12:14:26 GMT -5
I agree, but I'm still convinced that WB never intended for there to be a sequel to SR. SR was a movie made of necessity in order to write off previous productions. Had it met whatever imaginary benchmark for success the suits had set, then I'm sure we'd have seen a sequel. Instead, they told these guys to bring it in under budget so they could write it off as a 200 million dollar movie (which it isn't). It was a gamble they were willing to take. JJ Abrams' film would have been an enormous success, but would have cost considerably more than 200 million to film, and WB wouldn't take an actual risk like that with all of the money already sunk into 10 years of pre-production on failed projects.
This is why any talk of "plans" for an SR sequel are hogwash. There never was a plan. The writers clearly knew nothing of Superman other than what they saw in STM, and Singer probably knew how tenuous his hold on the entire project was. This project was doomed to fail from the start.
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Kirok
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Post by Kirok on Dec 24, 2012 12:50:35 GMT -5
As for any "legacy" SR may have, I was hoping Lois' boyfriend in the New 52 would've been Richard White. Instead it's some dude named Jonathan, seemingly just to torment Clark even further by the name of his adopted father now being a reminder of how he and Lois are not together.
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theoj
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Post by theoj on Dec 24, 2012 12:59:43 GMT -5
SR was not a failure. $400 million worldwide must have turned a small profit. It made slightly more theatrically than Batman Begins. It had great reviews like Batman Begins. And much of the film was excellent. I personally loved (most) of it, though at the same time, felt strangely disappointed.
But it failed to reach out across a new generation of fans and probably only made its money from us... the old STM fans!
As we can see, after just six years, SR is almost forgotten, which only bodes well for Man Of Steel if that film can finally reach out beyond the core fan base and grab the type of audience that The Dark Knight achieved... or Avatar!
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Post by Valentine Smith on Dec 24, 2012 13:08:01 GMT -5
Please note that I agree that SR, by most conventional wisdom, would NOT be considered a box office failure. What I'm saying is, WB stacked the deck against it in advance.
Had Superman: Flyby been made instead, we'd be waiting on Superman Part Four by next summer instead of a reboot. While that would have brought a whole host of problems on its own, it's the truth. It was a big, dumb, crowd-pleaser...everything SR was not. But it would have cost over 200 million bucks to make...in 2004 money. That's a lot. Too much for something that already had a history of failure attached to it.
There was never gonna be an SR2. WB went with Singer's pitch because they knew it could be brought in relatively cheap, and everything else could be written off. Had it made another hundred million, they would have started the wheels turning in earnest. But everything was obfuscation, no treatments were written, NOTHING in SR indicates that there were greater plans in store for this world, and any jawing by Routh or Singer that they had "big plans" for a sequel were nothing more than PR.
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botz1
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Post by botz1 on Dec 24, 2012 13:19:30 GMT -5
IMO SR was just a bridge film before a reboot..thats why there was very little effort put into it....So a sequel was never in their vision..Hence the no hint of any villian in SR for a sequel..
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atp
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Post by atp on Dec 24, 2012 16:35:10 GMT -5
The writers clearly knew nothing of Superman other than what they saw in STM. Um... what else is there to know?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 25, 2012 2:49:40 GMT -5
I don't think WB ever wanted to do a sequel. Everything about Superman Returns feels too personal, from the crew made up entirely of Singer people, to the slavish devotion to the Donnerverse, to the storyline with the kid- and let's face it, if they were wanting to launch it as a new franchise, it never would have been allowed to turn out that way. Singer told the story he wanted to tell, and it put the characters into a corner that would've been difficult to get away from due to the existence of the kid and the end of the Lois-Superman romance arc- I doubt any of those aspects would have made it into the film if the studio was thinking long-term. They would have demanded a clean slate, with marketable villains and more action.
Keep in mind, Legendary Pictures and WB are the same studio-distributor combo that hacked Clash of the Titans to pieces in the editing room to make it more marketable- and that movie did get a sequel, even though no one was asking for one.
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Shane
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Post by Shane on Dec 25, 2012 3:20:35 GMT -5
there would of been a sequel but there was valkyrie
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Dec 25, 2012 13:23:17 GMT -5
In listening to Singer's 'prep talk' to his staff- about preparing them for him constantly changing his mind on things creatively and going from the gut (I think Singer mentioned that he decided to add in the killing off of Phoenix in X2 at the last minute- pretty radical but it worked)....
I think you're right about Singer knowing how tenuous on his hold was on the project- he mentioned having some pretty free reign for SR- which was rare..... but I do think he had 'rough ideas' for a sequel, just as he did for X3 (which Dougherty shared in a radio interview- but with X3, they had the final treatment, whereas they didn't get as far with SR 2)-
About the writers not knowing anything about Superman beyond STM- I don't know if I'd come to the same conclusion- as it's just not clear how much Singer wanted the writers wanted SR to stay within the STM universe and how much divergence from it. But then again, I come from really loving the work they did on X2 and many portions of SR, so I may be biased.....
About no plans whatsoever... well....true, there was no script, but considering how long some scripts seem to take/get ok's from the studio, I don't think that they didn't have ANYTHING planned- Just that the studio wasn't pushing them/paying them to finish a script, until the other greenlights went on.
(Aside: I don't think that the news about the treatment that circulated on the web was 100% accurate, but I do trust the radio interview, where Dougherty mentioned some of the bits that they were going to have.... what motivation would Dougherty have to lie about the bits that were covered? )
Also- The bits about Kryptonians seeing Supes' ship fly back to Earth and following the trail, and seeming to come in peace at first, don't sound bad to me at all...
Still, I agree that Singer probably knew better than to feel 'sure' about being able to get a greenlight on a sequel..... seeing as how (according to Aintitcoolnews) 20th could have threw money at him and locked him down securely for X3, but chose not to--- and/or could have locked him down as producer even after SR, but chose not to.
As far as the theory that WB stacked the deck against SR so that they could justify all the wasted development money for decades?
I guess it's not impossible- it seems like it could make sense, I'm just not close enough to the industry (or at all) to know for sure how things do/don't operate- the closest I get are the bits from the screenwriters' podcasts at John August's website and from some acquaintences that work as art directors and production assists in Hwood.... could well be true!
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Dec 25, 2012 13:36:18 GMT -5
I agree that SR IS too personal a film--- which, to me, I think is why I think it's a fascinating watch.... and why I get a little irritated when its minimized to just a 'cheap ripoff' of STM from time to time on the web.
I think the fact that it DID look like a tough corner to get out of, (the kid being Superman's), is what made a sequel interesting as heck.
Spock got killed off in Trek 2, and that seemed to be a giant corner that couldn't easily be got out of, but that made Trek 3 interesting in that it gave the writers a big challenge to get out of that corner by make Spock's return somewhat plausible and interesting at the same time.
Similarly, I think that there were a lot of larger possibilities that opened up by having Superman have the kid- it gave Superman a new vulnerability, that could have raised the stakes tremendously, and take the superhero film into new territory and to a new level- just as I thought TDK did (although TDKR set it back a few levels imo).
Smallville I thought (most of the time) focused on the drama ahead of the superheroics- badly. (*Although I know there's a faction that felt the same with SR)
Singer - with SR I thought also put the drama ahead of the superheroics, but did it well. That the kid in SR comes off as genuine and not shtick is amazing...(**or that it isn't Superman III with little Ricky all over again). if the drama continued in SR 2, if it would have been similar to how X2 was an improvement to X1, it would have been truly amazing in terms of fireworks and drama.
But.....doesn't matter now. It's a bummer how much things sortof echoed the Donner situation of the original director not being able to come back to do a sequel to his own film....
*sigh*
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Post by Valentine Smith on Dec 25, 2012 23:10:50 GMT -5
CAM, you're way too smart to delude yourself that anything about that "treatment" (which didn't exist) was anything other than fanwank.
And anything Dougherty or Singer said about upping the stakes in SR2 was damage control AFTER people panned the flick for not having enough action. There was never a game plan.
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Kirok
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Post by Kirok on Dec 25, 2012 23:33:59 GMT -5
Very interesting theories here. I hope there's an HONEST tell-all about the making of SR at some point. Perhaps in a Bryan Singers memoir. The behind-the-scenes drama sounds better than what ended up on screen! If there were no plans for a SR sequel, then what about this concept art for Doomsday that surfaced about a year ago?
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Post by Valentine Smith on Dec 25, 2012 23:40:16 GMT -5
That's definitely from a pre-SR Superman project. Pretty sure it wasn't JJ Abrams...probably one of the Burton ones.
NO pre-production was done on SR2, and that includes treatments, formal or otherwise.
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Kirok
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Post by Kirok on Dec 25, 2012 23:52:54 GMT -5
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Post by Valentine Smith on Dec 26, 2012 0:00:27 GMT -5
Yeah, I'm pretty sure all of those suit designs are from Flyby, as most designs from the Burton stuff were...not as good. I've definitely seen that alien/Doomsday design before, but it pre-dates SR. Trying to verify that... EDIT: This might solve things. www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.482213108928.257344.183083583928This is the guy's legit FB account, and it's listed as part of his JJ Abrams stuff. It's not Doomsday. It's this other Kryptonian race. Here's another image. Actually, that whole gallery is pretty awesome. Flyby would have been a visually stunning film.
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Dec 26, 2012 1:38:55 GMT -5
As this thread is slipping into JJ Abrams/Ratner(?)'s Superman- Just curious: was Cavill the actor Ratner was going to go with? Does anyone know if this rumor (from awhile back) was solid?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 26, 2012 2:10:08 GMT -5
The legacy of "Superman Returns" is a punchline at the end of a Seth McFarlane movie.
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