A huge announcement regarding development of the next Superman film has surfaced via Deadline who has confirmed that Zack Snyder is onboard to direct the next Superman film immediately following his work on Sucker Punch.
Snyder spoke to Deadline explaining that “I’ve been a big fan of the character for a long time, he’s definitely the king of all superheroes, he’s the one”.
Zack Snyder came onto the film scene in a huge way via his remake of George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead” and followed that up with the much loved comic book adaptations “300” and “Watchmen”.
His work on comic book properties to date has been fantastic, particularly on “Watchmen”, given the complexities of the source material Snyder translated it into a great film which I felt was at least true to the spirit of the source material without managing to be a literal translation (and I’m not sure a giant squid at the end would have worked very well in the film anyhow).
Chris Nolan (Batman Begins, Memento, The Prestige, Dark Knight, Inception) is still attached to the project in a producing and oversight type role as is one of his previous collaborators David S. Goyer who worked on the screenplays for Batman Begins, Jumper and Dark Knight and will be filling a similar role for the Superman film.
This is a great step forward for the Superman franchise which has been struggling to gain traction since the Bryan Singer directed ‘Superman Returns’ which despite grossing $390 million worldwide is considered not to have performed financially well enough to give Warner Bros reason enough to continue with that vision of the franchise.
I’ve said it before in previous posts regarding the future of Superman on film but I think it’s a shame that Brandon Routh will likely not be considered for the role, he delivered a great performance in the role and I would have liked to see him continue.
Sucker Punch directed by Zack Snyder looks very interesting and is scheduled for release during 2011, be sure to check out the trailer and some promo posters here. Hopefully if production starts to ramp up over the next couple of months we can look forward to the next Superman film sometime in 2012 and with names like Chris Nolan and Zack Snyder involved, it’s going to be very interesting to see where they take it.
