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The Superman movies: a rollercoaster ride of hits and misses

it was a movie very well valued by critics both for its technical aspect, as well as for the double interpretation of Christopher Reeve and the directed by Richard Donner. Besides, John Williams was commissioned to create a soundtrack that hasn’t aged since those days.

Superman II (1980)

The second Superman movie would come a couple of years later, but it wasn’t without its problems. The Salkinds (Alexander and Ilya) they disagreed with the director’s vision, and they decided to fire him when he had almost three quarters of the film already done. Instead they put Richard Lesterwhich remade much of the film and kept only a third of Richard Donner’s work, which was not even credited in the film.

Superman II tells the story of several Kryptonians who are accidentally freed by Superman himself, who end up seeking revenge upon discovering that he is Jor-El’s son. Despite all the changes that his script underwent, the movie was a successas it retained some of the charm of the first part and was well valued in general terms.

Superman III (1983)

The third installment was again entrusted to Richard Lester, but lost Mario Puzo as screenwriter, one of the most important assets the Salkinds had at the time. The story would be told Ross Webster, a megalomaniac who decides to take revenge on Superman when the superhero destroys a crop of his property that was dangerous for the environment. Ross orders a computer expert to design a synthetic kryptonite to confront Superman, which would end up dividing him between Clark Kent and a dark superman.

On this occasion, the film itself was heavily criticized, both for its direction and for its little originality.

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)

It was Christopher Reeve himself, who pulled the strings so that this film ended up being produced, getting the support of Cannon Films, Golan-Globus and Warner itself.

The story was proposed by Reeveand it was about nuclear disarmament. The film begins with the superhero attending the United Nations General Assembly and announcing that he will eliminate all nuclear weapons from the planet. However, Lex Luthor disagrees with Superman’s plans. The villain would end cloning the superhero and creating a nuclear-powered version of the protagonist. The film was even weaker than the previous one, and would close out Reeve’s run as a superhero.

The Dark Period: Superman’s Canceled Projects

Nicholas Cage Superman Burton

After the four movies, we would never see Superman on the big screen again until 2006. In between there were all kinds of canceled projects. superman V It would end up being canceled due to the bankruptcy of Cannon Films, the production company that was behind the previous installment.

In 1993Warner regained the film rights to Superman and assigned the project to Jon Peters, who had produced Tim Burton’s two Batman films in 1989 and 1992. Peters would eventually hire screenwriter Jonathan Lemkin, who completely ignored Warner’s guidelines and did the script for superman reborn, which told the story of how Superman died and Lois gave birth to a new Superman. The story did not please Warner, as expected. Later, the project would be canceled after hiring a new writer who did not end up convincing the studio either.

The next Jon Peters flop it was called superman lives. The script was entrusted to Kevin Smith, forcing him to comply with a series of absurd premises that the creator ignored. The film should have been released in 1998, directed by Tim Burton and starring Nicolas Cage. The film began shooting, but was stopped to rewrite the story. The rest were chained. Wesley Strick was hired, who demolished many of Smith’s ideas. Later, the director himself began to be dissatisfied with Peters, and seeing the Warner’s financial situation at that time, the most sensible thing was to cancel the project. All this history is collected in the documentary The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened?directed by Jon Schnepp.

However still three more films would be canceled. The first project of Batman vs. Superman it was commissioned to JJ Abrams, and it would be canceled in 2002. Later, the same artist wrote Superman: Flyby, what? it was canceled because Abrams felt that they did not have a sufficient budget. And finally, it would also end on deaf ears Superman Destruction in the early 2000s

Superman Returns (2006)

Nearly three decades later, Bryan Singer decided to cancel two productions to direct superman returns hand in hand with Warner Bros. Apparently, the director had been a big fan of Richard Donner’s work, and in a certain part, Superman Returns completely ignored everything that happened in the two films after Donner’s stage, so it could be considered a direct sequel to Superman II.

On this occasion, the Man of Steel would be played by Brandon Routh, quite unknown until that moment, but with a profile that slightly reminded Reeve. He was also given the role of Lex Luthor to kevin spacey. The film narrated Superman’s return to Earth after five years searching for survivors from his home planet, which had caused Lex Luthor to roam at ease with him.

This stage could have been much longer, since the film was quite successful, raising almost 400 million dollars and having very good reviews. The sequel was scheduled for summer 2009, but Warner ended up considering that the numbers had not been as spectacular as they imagined. The sequel never got writtenbut according to Singer, it would have been called the man of steel, that is, just as it would end up being called the reboot later.

DC Extended Universe

others passed seven years more and Warner Bros finally decided to give Superman a new chance, making a complete reboot of the franchise, and laying the foundations for what we now consider the DC Extended Universe.

Man of Steel (2013)

Superman-Henry Cavill

It is the current stage of Superman. He was born with Man of Steel (2013), where he was presented to henry cavill as protagonist and initiated the zack snyder erawhich in turn was influenced by Christopher Nolan, who had just succeeded with his trilogy of The dark knight.

This film combines part of the two original films performed by Christopher Reeve, where the clark kent early lifeits evolution and its subsequent confrontation with the other survivor of Krypton, the General Zodwho wants to destroy humanity.

Snyder’s vision was quite interesting, showing a very introverted Superman with very dark undertones. The collection was a successmaking over $668 million at the box office.

Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

batman v superman

Graduated in Spain as Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justicethis movie It happens a year later Man of Steel. On this occasion, Batman (now played by Ben Affleck) would see with his own eyes how the fight between Superman and Zod in Metropolis would end the entire Wayne Enterprises building due to the negligence of the Kryptonian himself, where Jack O’Dwyer ends up dying, Bruce Wayne’s henchman.

After these events, the Dark Knight ends up totally opposing the Kryptonian way of dispensing justice —as if his had previously passed through a court order— and decides to confront him. Meanwhile, Lex Luthor will create a monster from Zod’s DNA, which he baptizes as doomsday.

Justice League (2017)

the justice league movie planning began just after the filming of Man of Steel in 2012, and followed the events of its predecessor. Without Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman—along with other DC superheroes—are not capable of facing steppenwolfa new threat to the world, so they come to the conclusion that the only way to deal with it is to resurrect Superman.

The script was in charge of David S. Goyer and it was established that there would be two films in total, but not consecutive. Both would be directed by Snyder. Nevertheless, everything would go wrong after the premiere of Batman vs. Superman, which had very bad reviews. Warnet decided to take weight off Snyder so as not to burn him out. This was added to the fact that the director and his wife were going through a bad time, so they both stepped aside and Joss Whedon was hired for post-production of the movie. Whedon would end up making multiple changes, even reshooting scenes and adding humor.

And if that was not enough, the review was quite negative. DC fans would start a campaign for Snyder to release his own montage of the film under the banner #RelasetheSnyderCut. And, for the first time in history, complaining on Twitter served a purpose. On March 18, 2021, it was published on HBO (HBO Max in the US) Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021)a ‘director’s cut’ adapted for television that was very well received by critics, despite being an unnecessarily long production.

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