When it was announced last year, following a high profile court case, that Warner Bros might lose the rights to Superman in favour of the heirs to original creators Jerome Siegel and Joe Shuster, true fans of the comic book series might have been forgiven for thinking that this was not exactly the end of the world. While the studio successfully rebooted its Batman franchise by handing it over to Christopher Nolan, an edgy film-maker with the confidence to take a few risks, in 2004, it had also allowed the Man of Steel to languish in development hell for much of the last two decades.
Since 2006's Superman Returns failed to make the desired impact on either the critics or the public, and in the wake of the enormous box office haul for 2008's The Dark Knight, Warner has appeared – more than ever – entrenched in a slough of indecision, despite a looming deadline of 2011 before which it must start work on some sort of Superman film or risk losing the rights. The son of Jor-El may be capable of running faster than a speeding bullet, but the company in charge of his future seems to move at a snail's pace.
However, according to Access Hollywood, that may all be set to change. The website reports that Nolan himself is being brought in to oversee the redevelopment of Superman, which will take the form of a complete reboot. That means it's sayonara to Bryan Singer and Brandon Routh, respectively the director and star of Superman Returns, for which I for one am thankful.
According to the report, Nolan won't be directing the new Superman, but we can assume he'll have a hand in picking the film-maker who does, and in deciding what type of character emerges from the detritus of the last film. Superman Returns was intended to carry on from the end of Richard Donner and Richard Lester's first two, hugely successful films in the series (from 1978 and 1981 respectively), which meant Routh was forced into a failed attempt to channel Christopher Reeve rather than forging his own persona. The new movie should rectify that, and Nolan certainly has the vision to make sensible decisions over the franchise's new direction, rather than terrify us with wrong-headed JJ Abrams-style reimaginings.
In the wake of the Dark Knight's success, Warner Bros's Jeff Robinov said in reference to Superman and the company's other comic book titles: "We have to look at how to make these movies edgier". That was widely interpreted as suggesting the imminent arrival of a sort of weirdly gothic man of steel, but Deadline Hollywood's sources reckon: "He meant more sophisticated."
There's certainly potential within the 78 years of Superman's history for a starker take on the character. While Donner played up his subject's virtual invincibility, admirable moral compass and all-American values, the comic books have often shown us a more complex figure. Siegel and Schuster's creation was a little closer to Batman's vigilante-style in terms of his violent response to criminals and thugs, and it was only over the years that the character gained many of his abilities, developed his kryptonian back story and grew into the "big blue boy scout" of the movies.
Having said that, it seems to me that a drastic reinvention of the Donner Superman might be hard for audiences to take, so indented is the Reeve version on the public consciousness. Ditto the penchant for the character to battle it out with aliens, which enters the canon from the 1960s onwards, something of an anachronistic fallout from the Apollo-era fascination with outer space. Were it introduced today, it's hard to see how creatives could avoid the character coming across like Flash Gordon in a cape.
Could you countenance a radical remoulding of the man of steel? Or should the iconic Kal-El of all our childhoods be retained, complete with mild-mannered outlook, kiss curl and external underpants?