itt: consternation and wailing about Zach Snyder's upcoming SUPERMAN/BATMAN film/sequel to MAN OF STEEL -- official title: BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE

my understand is that when the film started to run into financial trouble, arnold just went to get some more diamonds, from his hideout.

The intl market is what I'm referring to. Flick could make like only("only") $150-200m in America and will still pull in more than $300-400m everywhere else even in it's uncontesably shite.

I'm kinda curious how high the returns have to be and still be considered "underperforming" by idiotic yet terrified studio execs staking their entire "hot-shotting a universe" maneuver on this flick not tanking so hard it kills any DC cinematic outing for 5 years.

Hey hey hey the international market is larger but not less discerning - The Dark Knight made most of its money in the US, for example.

snyder:

Over the last two years he’s basically been Superman as pop culture would know him. He’s been righting wrongs, there have been floods, mines have collapsed, bridges have collapsed, churches have caught on fire. He’s basically been a hero.

When we find him, he’s been dealing with the everyday world of being a superhero, but there’s a paradigm shift happening, in that the unintended consequences of some of those rescues are starting to come into fruition. He’s starting to see that every action has a reaction. Like, if you’re just taking a cat out of a tree, you can’t touch anything or the arborists will say, ‘He damaged the tree branch when he got the cat down.’ Or, ‘The cat wasn’t neutered, so now there’s thousands of cats.’ There’s no winning any more for Superman.

so basically we're going from seeing inexperienced hero who levels a city and kills his opponent to a movie about the public turning against him and skipping over entirely all the fun heroic stuff in the middle? another fantastic creative decision from visionary director zack snyder

Although I was already planning on skipping it, nothing has made me want to see the movie less than that passage. Not even just for the fact that he seems hellbent to suck allllllll of the fun out of Superman (for which, fuck him) but largely because...does he think that's a compelling framework around which to build a story? Really? That's like a one-off issue of the comic, dealing with the annoyances of unintended consequences, and then you get the fuck on with the good shit next month.

Like, if you’re just taking a cat out of a tree, you can’t touch anything or the arborists will say, ‘He damaged the tree branch when he got the cat down.’

oh yeah this is brilliant. i definitely want to give the mind that thought this up my money. /s

xp seems like a hangover from watchmen really - 'c'mon guys real superheroes would be terrifying monsters!' the idea that superheroes can work on any other level seems utterly alien to him. i wonder what he thought of ant-man or gotg?

Zach Snyder on Ant-Man:

But I feel like Batman and Superman are transcendent of superhero movies in a way, because they’re Batman and Superman. They’re not just, like, the flavour of the week Ant-Man – not to be mean, but whatever it is. What is the next Blank-Man?

arborists

I want a Superman movie that is just rescuing cats from trees. Was that really ever a thing? My cat climbs trees, then climbs down. He should rescue dogs from trees, because what the hell?

arboristes, more like.

for real though i'd totally watch a feature-length movie about superman rescuing cats from trees and being nice to everyone

"Brainiac v1 was just a project of Lex's to wander around sucking up cats and depositing them in trees"

after this movie is released, someone should make an edit where a very cartoony Mister Mxyzptlk appears in the most grimdark scenes

Plus Batmite, plz.

yessss

If he used his powers to rescue animals, do plumbing work, construct buildings, etc., people would put up the occasional supervillain.

Snyder's Superman reluctantly does this low-level hero shit with a heavy sigh until like one person gives him some pushback on something really insignificant and he's just like, okay fuck this fuck all of you humans who needs this shit. And then he just sits there and watches warehouses burn and bitches about all of the strawmen who were on his back about saving unneutered cats from trees. In other words, a true hero who is transcendent of superhero movies in a way.

And lookit that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4Q9DEDKZx8

Y'know, I haven't seen these films in decades but godDAMN, Reeve's delivery and general demeanor was the perfect choice.

those movies hold up pretty badly overall but reeve is incredible. he'd be perfect casting for superman in a version of morrison and quitely's all-star superman (obvious problems with that casting aside)

Like, it makes one want to beat Snyder over the head with a hardcover collected trade(or a crate of Donner Bly-rays), yelling "Thats *bam* Not *bam* How *bam* Superman *bam* Works!"

But judging from his statements & past work, he'd probably just take the wrong lesson and think that cranial trauma should be involved. "Oh wait, Braniac has a huge head, Superman should just cave that in with a railroad tie!"

I can't wait to hatewatch the new one

I have no desire whatsoever to see this(aside from its future Hecklevision screening, probably) with the possible curiosity of how the other JLA members are going to be worked in.

Oddly enough, a Wonder Woman film set in WWII(especially if they stick with Golden Age/40s design motifs) _does_ sound like something you could get an interesting film from.

those movies hold up pretty badly overall but reeve is incredible

nah first two are a lot of fun. 3 and 4 are totally off the rails tho

3 is a lot of fun for all the wrong reasons. Love that movie so hard.

xxp it's set in ww1 isn't it?

nah first two are a lot of fun. 3 and 4 are totally off the rails tho

the first hour of the original superman is pretty much perfect, then it gets bogged down in luthor's tedious plan for world domination and dubious time-reversal shenanigans

the second one is probably the best (terence stamp 4 eva) but has the weird 'superman takes his revenge' scenes with rocky the truck driver which are massively out of character

three has reeve's amazing 'bad superman' performance which is fantastic

four has a grey milton keynes unconvincingly standing in for the united nations in new york and is generally appalling but reeve still sells clark/superman so, so well

Reeve is the only Superman imo

tim daly did a pretty good job in the animated series but yeah reeve was born to play that role. brandon routh wasn't bad but he was basically impersonating reeve throughout superman returns. only things i can really recall about henry cavill was that he didn't ever accidentally look directly into the camera and his costume looked weird without red trunks.

I'm basically willing to accept only a very slight deviation from Superman's animated series depiction in any subsequent film or television project. I'm not saying it's a metric everyone needs to use, but it's the only one I know that makes any sense.

otm

agreed

three has reeve's amazing 'bad superman' performance which is fantastic

this def brings the lolz - but it barely hangs together as a film

well, yeah

now that these things have become weirdly serious tentpole the center of all cinema events i've actually somewhat come around on superman 3 and 4. i can't imagine wanting to watch them again (2 is the only one i'd watch again, so bizarre to me that nerds treat richard lester as this hack that was brought in to betray the vision of a true genius like richard donner) but i like that they're so trashy and cheap, it seems somewhat in tune w/ the comics, make enough of them and eventually you'd need one where richard pryor pops up cuz why not and the fourth one w/ captain nuclear or whatever could be one of those hacky psa superman comics for the dental association of america or some sponsor, all you needed was to have superman turn to the camera at the end, wink, and remind us to keep eating these delicious hostess pies. reeves really is incredible, i don't think until it was later that i realized just how much he nailed what superman is/should be. kidder's a great lois lane also, feel like none of the lanes since have been right, just kinda generic gf w/ maybe an ounce of drive but nothing approaching the relentless busybody of lois lane. kate bosworth isn't telling superman to stuff it, she needs to turn into a black woman for this story.

make enough of them and eventually you'd need one where richard pryor pops up cuz why not

QED

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/613YOw-5NAL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Yes to pretty much all of that, balls.

It isn't too late to insert a scene of Supes foiling a fruit pie robbery, Snyder. All will be forgiven, I promise.

Goody Rickles. The King at his best.

Goody Rickles makes up for 1,000 Flippa Dippas.

(Not really.)

balls otm

kidder's a great lois lane also, feel like none of the lanes since have been right, just kinda generic gf w/ maybe an ounce of drive but nothing approaching the relentless busybody of lois lane.

I was SO disappointed when I learned that Parker Posey's role in Superman Returns was *not* Lois Lane, she would've been perfect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN7OBEd5hRM

She's in a tv/news chopper, right? Took me decades to realize how '70s as fuuuuuuuck it is to have a set-piece based on _a tv news chopper_.

Also, the earthquake/flood scene gave my younger brother nightmares for *years*. I just remember being disturbed by the shot of dirt tumbling from Kidder's mouth.

that's it, i'm watching Superman II tonight

i have been rewanting to watch Superman IV too. i've seen 1 and 3 so many times. the 1st one is the best movie but they are all good fun. i saw IV in the theater when it came out (i was under 10) and it was insane. plotholes be damned it was just completely ridiculous and i loved it.

Ducky as Lex Luthor's nephew

xpost It's a Golan Globus production, what else could possibly be expected.

i was raised on that stuff.

i love trash. i love it because its trash.

but it has to be fun trash. Snyder trash is glowery late 90s Playstation trash. boring and unimaginative.

Yes, exactly. Snyder's work is like a portentious and incoherent cutscene from a '90s Playstation game featuring extreme and tortured badasses.

and the 2000s ones that are all desaturated and everything is brown and grey