James McTeigue Yearns For Superman
Thu, October 1, 2009 
The studio is insisting that Superman on film is cooling off at the Fortress of Solitude but that hasn't stopped James McTeigue from talking some "Man of Steel". In an interview with Alex Billington over at First Showing, McTeigue gave a rather vague depiction of what his film version of Superman might look like:
"I think I would be interested in doing it if they let me do it the way I wanted to do it. I would say that, if you take the Richard Donner Supermans and the last Superman [from Bryan Singer], I think that Superman is probably ripe for a bit of a change up. I think society has changed around the core idea of what Superman was."
"And I'm not saying you do the ubiquitous dark Superman, I'm not saying that… I'm just saying that I think there are some things that you could excise from the Superman mythology that people would get into it, if you took the world that he was in and changed that a bit, and maybe even project that into the future a bit. I think you don't really have to play into the origin story anymore. I think there's a whole bunch of things you could do to make that film more alive and exciting again."
Although McTeigue's quotes don't really delve deep into his take on a would be Superman film, it all sounds a lot like what we just recently were graced with during Bryan Singer's "Superman Returns". Seems to me that McTeigue meeting with Warner Bros about Superman is past tense and had to do with both of their involvement in "Ninja Assassin", which has started off with some lukewarm reviews.
It is a possibility that "Ninja Assassin" was looked at as a test by the executives at Warners to see if McTeigue was ready for a property such as Superman. It wouldn't be the first time. Tim Burton went through a similar test when he went forward with "Beetle Juice" before he took the helm on "Batman" for the studio. I'm not even close to anointing McTeigue the next Burton, I'm not even sure he wants me to.
At this point it looks like Superman has hung up his cape for the forseeable future, it's been a fun ride, but it certainly might be over for now. As one of my sources at the studio mentioned to me in a past email, it could be a situation where we receive a story they like and before you know it Superman is in production. On the other hand it could be a scenario where the next time any of us see Superman he won't even be the character we know and love anymore.
Reader Comments (1)
''At this point it looks like Superman has hung up his cape for the forseeable future, it's been a fun ride, but it certainly might be over for now. As one of my sources at the studio mentioned to me in a past email, it could be a situation where we receive a story they like and before you know it Superman is in production. On the other hand it could be a scenario where the next time any of us see Superman he won't even be the character we know and love anymore.'
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