I too, am witholding praise or criticism from Kate Bosworth until I see SUPERMAN RETURNS. I've never seen her in anything. Who knows? She might be great. Or at least the overall high production values and a savvy director and editor can uplift her performance to the rest of the cast.

However, I do think Parker Posey could have been a good Lois. Why?

1) She is one of the few starlets and good looking women in Hollywood that can actually act;

2) She doesn't look THAT old; didn't she play a high schooler in WAITING FOR GUFFMAN, what, 5 years ago? If she did that then, she can play a twentysomething now.

3) Even if there was an age gap between her and Brendan Routh, that wouldn't necessarily be to the detriment of the film as long as the two had chemistry. Margot Kidder was much older than Christopher Reeve in their Superman movies. In fact, that actually is the reason a scene in the movie was cut: it had a young ten year old Lois Lane waiving to a sixteen year old Clark Kent running by a train (which also had cameos by Noel Neil and Kirk Alyn). The scene was cut because it was obvious in the finished film Lois is older than Superman is, not vice-versa. But the Kidder/Reeve dynamic worked, because THEY worked.

This doesn't bother me as much, because for one thing, it proves that Bryan Singer has a veneration for what came before, and therefore a humility about the entire project. It shows their mentality is "what can we keep about Superman that works?" Instead of "hee hee hee, what do we change first?"

Which means, for one thing, it's unlikely Lex Luthor is going to be from Krypton.  



The comparison is inexact. While I love George Reeves, the fact is, a big budget studio film with a STAR WARS-level budget can work with a scope and grandeur that a television show can't show you for reasons of cost (not that this approach would make a film "better" at all, it takes story and writing to do that). But my point is this: there is more points of potential duplication between one big budget film and another big budget film than a big budget film with a low budget television show.



Agreed.

However, Bryan Singer has never given us "comic relief" (a codeword for the character in a movie or cartoon we hate more than anyone else), or anything to indicate that he uses this technique.

Also, Parker Posey is honestly a funny woman.

JulianPerez writes:




Well, I'll grant you that, to a point.  But look at it this way:  in the public's mind before 1989, Batman was Adam West and the Batmobile was a customized Lincoln Futura showcar.  It would have been very, very easy to pick up those old threads and weave a new film instead of redesigning everything from the ground up.  You could say, "This is what the public knows, so let's give it to them...the marketing's already been done." But it also would have been a wrong move, if for no other reason than that it would have relegated the '89 film to a continuation, an homage, a copycat.

Donner was in the same spot in 1978.  The George Reeves show had a huge impact on American pop culture and was still airing in syndication around the world.  There must have been a temptation to emulate it.  Yes, you could do it all in bigger fashion, with better effects and a larger scope, but you could keep a lot: a daffy Lois and bumbling Jimmy, a Superman who if not entirely a father figure at least looked old enough to have finished college, a Krypton in the Flash Gordon mold, etc.  Instead we got a lot of changes, not least an icy, barren Krypton and a rocketship that looked like a Christmas ornament.  Oh, and Gene Hackman acting like a third-season celebrity villain on the above-mentioned "Batman" show.

I don't have a problem with certain things being carried over to a new film.  For instance, I doubt anyone will ever top John Williams' theme, so go ahead and use it. But it seems kind of creepy, frankly, that they've cast this Chris Reeve lookalike and they're trying to make a sequel to a pair of movies made before many people in the audience were even born.  
I guess what I'm saying is that the Salkind films have a lot of baggage, and not all of it's good.  I like certain things about those old films, but they are not the "definitive" Superman for me...in fact they have a LOT of problems.  Next year it'll be what...19 years since the last Superman film. As a fan I always hope that the next take will be the perfect one.  Batman fans got a new spin on their hero this year and many of them loved it.  Superman fans?  Well, so far it looks like we're getting a continuation of what went before.  If you happened to like that, you're in luck.  If you've had enough of it, sorry Charlie.  





Well yes, that was a crummy script.  But "new take" doesn't have to equal crap.  You seem to be saying that at least if Singer's faithful to the old films, we know more or less what we're going to get already.  Considering what we almost had to deal with (Jon Peter's de-powered Superman, Nick Cage) I can sympathize.  But if all we can hope for is more of the same, I have to wonder why we should bother going.  And if Singer feels obliged to follow another man's vision, I wonder what's in it for him as an artist.

Superman has been re-interpreted many times already, in cartoons, on TV, in movies and on radio.  All were different, all had similarities, and all were interesting.  I guess I just feel that we're about due for another spin on things.  And from what I've seen so far, what we're getting is another installment in the Salkind series.  A series that, for my money, deserved to end before it did.

The Adam West fanboy in me is saying, hey, that would be pretty awesome! But I digress.  



Not the best example, as the '89 film was of dubious quality, but I see your point nonetheless.



I see your point.



Well, just from what little we know about the movie, it does seem that Singer's offering something new on the grill: Metropolis as a CGI created art deco fairyland. Whatever else about the movie may be true or not, at least Metropolis will look good, or it ought to with all the money they're sinking in. And this would affect other versions of Superman in other media; after the movie, you can't just stick Superman in the middle of a Vancouver, BC or Chicago-looking city and have it be Metropolis; the city will acquire a character it is certain will become the mainstay for future media portrayals.

I don't have as much a problem with people bringing little that is new to the table with regards to Superman, because you don't need to make additions or new perspectives THAT badly; Superman WORKS. I am *not* going to quote "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," because that isn't true when applied to the creative process, which requires innovation constantly. I am however, going to say this: Superman has such a strong central concept and strong plot elements, that with all seriousness, I say that it isn't possible to tell a bad Superman story. It isn't. The only way to really tell a bad Superman story is if you ignore these things - as they did with SUPERMAN III when he became a side character to the Richard Pryor Show.

Incidentally, I always did enjoy SUPERGIRL in a guilty-pleasure sense, right up there with my love of Hammer Caveman movies and Kung Fu flicks (AGAINST THE DRUNKEN CAT PAWS is a choice favorite).