Showing posts with label superman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label superman. Show all posts

Friday, April 18, 2014

Wonder Woman Beach Workout

Saw this on Google Pl;us and Had to Share!!!


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Monday, April 14, 2014

JLA Trapped in Time review and more

Just watched this online. Great story. The animation and voices were a bit of a throw back to the 1970s/80s Super Friends.

In case you did not get this the animators had Wendy & Marvin walking Super Dog - or at least their clones as extras. And the entire Time trapper character seems like one of the old Super Friends villain of the week. DC has never been a great story teller when it came to Fantasy - at least not on TV or Film.

The lighter story telling clearly designed for younger audience is focused around some young super heroes in training - Karate Kid and Dawn Star (on the cover art to the right - that is not Hawk Girl). No Mr. Miyagi present...

In the prologue, Lex Luthor and the Gang - all looking more cartoonish than the past 20 years of animated DC TV and video - are trying to Dry up the world's oceans by creating massive glaciers in the North Pole via five satellites in orbit with giant freeze rays Ala Captain Cold. As the JLA defeats the Legion of Doom, Lex Luthor is trapped in ice.

In the year 3100ish Lex Luthor is on display in a Museum of Heroes and Villians. Karate Kid and Dawn Star are making the rounds. An overly eager Karate Kid - wanting desperately to join Lightning Lad and Legion of Super Heroes - frees Luthor. Lex grabs Captain Cold's freeze gun, stops the two young heroes and Releases the Time Trapper.

With the Time trapper, Lex seeks out to stop the creation of the JLA by stopping Superman's early arrival to earth. He succeeds, but as in typical time travel stories, one paradox deserves another.

The entire JLA disappear as Time Trapper erases the paradox. But the two heroes from the future are no discovered. They seek out the frozen Luthor. Freeing Lex allows the Time Trapper to banish the time traveling Luthor and frees himself.

Time Trapper no seeks to turn the world into darkness. Apparently the power of time control makes everything float up into a vortex. Only the Light of Dawn Star saves the day to separate Time Trapper - a being of pure dark matter - from his magical hour glass.



LINKS
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3468260/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JLA_Adventures:_Trapped_in_Time

CAST
Peter Jessop as Superman
Diedrich Bader as Batman
Laura Bailey as Dawnstar
Dante Basco as Karate Kid
Corey Burton as Time Trapper, Captain Cold
Grey DeLisle-Griffin as Wonder Woman, Superbaby
Jack DeSena as Robin
Michael David Donovan as Bizarro
Tom Gibis as Toyman, Jonathan Kent
Erica Luttrell as Cheetah, Martha Kent
Liam O'Brien as Aquaman, Batwing Computer
Kevin Michael Richardson as Black Manta, Solomon Grundy
Jason Spisak as The Flash, Taxi Driver
Fred Tatasciore as Lex Luthor
Avery Kidd Waddell as Cyborg
Travis Willingham as Gorilla Grodd
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Sunday, February 23, 2014

Justice League: Doom - Movie Trailer, Review and more

Justice League: Doom Watch on Amazon
WIKI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_League:_Doom
IMDB http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2027128/

MUST SEE - NOW - GO - WATCH

I love this animated feature by DC Universe. While not officially a Bruce Timm produced feature, this one keeps with the Justice League Unlimited style and even features Timm as the voice of Ace. 

This is the ultimate Legion of Doom. By far the best. I like not having Lex Luthor as the head as it decentralizes JLA as just an extension of Superman. 

On paper, upon seeing a script, I would probably say this movie tries to do WAY TO MUCH and should be a series or trilogy. BUT The director deliver a perfectly action AND story packed movie with a surprise hero at the end, followed by banishment of another... 

I don't know of another project that can handle so many heroes and villains in one sitting. Now perhaps if you are not a DCU geek such as I you you may need some back story. But I love this movie trusts we know who most of these characters are going in... (We really don't need an origin story every time - note to Live action movie producers) This movie works for me on so many levels.... 

At some point I might try to rate each movie favorite / MUST SEE to 0... But I am so much an in the moment kind of guy. Writing this review I really want to watch it again. Being an impulsive kind of guy, I think I will....

Theatrical Trailer





FUNNY STORY - when I first started to right this blog post, in my head I was imagining the Justice League Episode "HERE AFTER"  where Superman, missing and presumed dead, ends up 30,000 years in the future finding a Vandal Savage now remorseful and willing to help him home. MAYBE NOT SO FUNNY but the episode is one of the best of all TV superhero arcs of all time as well...

Here is a clip I found online....







WIKI
Justice League: Doom is an animated direct-to-video superhero film loosely based on Mark Waid's JLA story arc, "JLA: Tower of Babel". The movie was adapted and written by Dwayne McDuffie and is directed by Lauren Montgomery. While not a direct sequel to Crisis on Two Earths, the film uses similar character designs by the lead character designer, Phil Bourassa. It was released on February 28, 2012.[1] The film also features various actors reprising their roles from the DC animated universe andGreen Lantern: Emerald Knightsrespectively.[2][3] It is the 13th film in the DC Universe Animated Original Movies line.
The film is dedicated to the memory of Dwayne McDuffie who died from complications following open heart surgery shortly after writing the film.
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Saturday, February 22, 2014

Everybody Parodies Superman: NOW THAT IS A JOB FOR... Funny compilation...

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How Hollywood almost destoyed Superman - AND STILL MIGHT...

Superman is indestructible - virtually. Well the the character is. The franchise is seemingly always under attack by the tug and pull between purists and radical "visionaries" that want to change everything we love about the character. As an actor and producer of theater, sketch and now film as well... I am always amazed at the crapped produced when morons with too much money put their faith in the wrong "Visionary"  - Best recent example of this is Spiderman on Broadway...

Reading some articles on WIKI, I discovered the answer why we had to wait so long for Superman Returns 2006.  The people that brought us Superman THE MOVIE are most likely the cause of its years of crappy movies and ideas. Making one great movie does not make you the expert.

Superman THE MOVIE was great. Superman 2 was pretty awesome, but clearly producers decided to reinvent what Kryptonians can do way too much. The movie survived a director change and was pretty good.

Superman 3 was not bad but critically panned. Superman 4 was produced by Cannon Films. Cannon bought the rights from Salkind but ran out of money and the movie clearly suffer from 2nd rate producing and Cannon's Bankruptcy.

But that is just the beginning of the disaster to be aimed at the Super Boy Scout...

Well as far as I am concerned they started with Superboy. I recently watched the pilot and was totally disgusted. I hear it get better with recastings and writing changes in later season. But what I saw was terrible.

SUPERMAN V was in the works. With writers from Superboy Series and Salkind Producing (Also writing premise for the story) this was bound to fail after Warner Brothers sued to regain control of the property. After the later works form Salkind I think this was a great thing to happen, even though it killed more movies. Instead we get Lois & Clark Which I have liked but never loved. After THE MOVIE TV budget could never really satisfy special effects needs... I preferred Greatest American Hero in the 1980s.

The Success of "THE DEATH OF SUPERMAN" Comics brought us one abandoned project after the next. At this point Salkind is replaced by Jon Peters as the horrible years to come for the character behind the scenes...

"In any good Superman movie, the fate of the whole planet should be at stake. You've got to have villains whose powers and abilities demand that Superman (and only Superman) can be the one who stops them. That's the only way to make the movie exciting and a dramatic challenge." —Writer Jonathan Lemkin on writing Superman Reborn FROM WIKI

SUPERMAN REBORN / SUPERMAN LIVES
If the "Death of Superman" was so perfect, why is every on screen version so different - Including the animated feature DOOMSDAY that was made. When the wheel is perfect, don't reinvent. Various versions of this script had Superman having relationship issues with Lois, fighting Doomsday and and passing on his life force resulting in VIRGIN BIRTH after his death - with the new Superman, a 3-week old child appearing 21 to save the day .

In a rewrite by Gregory Poirier (Creator of a show I wish lasted - ABC's MISSING with Ashley Judd), Superman's version of Jesus is replaced by his own life being resurrected by Cadmus - now an alien victim of Brainiac (The creator of Doomsday in this version) not a government project to stop meta-humans. JLA purists would have had a field day with that one. Kevin Smith was hired to rewrite the script but did not like the number of changes form the Superman Comic

"We got the Kevin Smith script, but we were told not to read it, because they knew he wasn't going to stay on the movie. So we used Kevin Smith's script as a guide to the sets we might be doing, and we waited and waited for the new script to come in, but it never did." —Art designer Sylvain Despretz on designing Superman Lives[ FROM WIKI

So in researching all of the failed Superman projects, it sounds like Kevin Smith is the only one that actually ever read the comics. BUT, thanks to the meddling of Jon Peters, his ideas would never be realized. Peters wanted Superman to wear all black, never fly and fight a giant spider. At some point Brainiac was to fight Polar Bears in the Fortress of Solitude, Lex Luthor would have a space dog  and a Brianiac sidekick, LRon  "A gay R2D2 with attitude. I guess Peters was a big fan of B Movies of the 1950s with ZERO vision and less knowledge of the character. READ MORE ABOUT KEVIN SMITH's Superman Tenure HERE Puts all of this into perspective... 'Eventually,' he explains, I met with [Warner's] Lorenzo DeBoniventura, a great guy, a smart guy. And Jon Peters, who isn't a really great guy or smart guy. I was fascinated by meeting Jon Peters, though, because this was the guy who produced BATMAN, and to hear him tell the story, you wouldn't think that Tim Burton meant anything to BATMAN. He says stuff like, 'You know the reason that BATMAN worked? You know that alleyway scene where he's fighting those sword-bearing guys and they're attacking him? Those guys were real swordsmen; that's why that movie made like $300 million.' I was like, 'Oh, really? All you need is real swordsmen to make a film such a hit?' But both of them dug on me, I guess. Jon's take was more from the gut than anything elseand way off base, too. He said, 'You know why you and me are going to get this project right and make a great movie? Because you and me understand Superman; we're from the streets.' I was like, 'You were a hairdresser once; I'm from the suburbs. Neither of us are from the streets.'' 

I think the following passage from the article some is all up.... 'They said to me, 'Kevin, what you don't understand about this is that this is a corporate movie,' he continues. 'It doesn't matter how good the dialogue is between Lois and Superman; it's about how many toys we can sell.' That was real soul-killing, man. Sell all the toys you want, but tell a good story in the process. Tell a good story, and you may sell more. And the fact of the matter is, even if the movies doesn't do well, like in the case of BATMAN & ROBIN, the toys will still sell. And you can make toys that have nothing to do with the movie. Very often you look at these Batman action figures, and it's like, 'I don't remember him in that suit.' You can make toys that aren't in the flick, but are just tied to it. Look at the amount of Batman outfits out there; you never see him in half these outfits. So that really bothered me. My attitude was that if I was going to work within these parameters, I'm going to at least do it where I can sleep at night and it's not flat-out stupid.'

Good movies sell merchandise - period. Selling toys makes bad movies - EVERYTIME!!!

All that being said, SUPERMAN LIVES was green lit, but in pre-production, Tim Burton, signed to direct, started to re-write with Wesley Strick. Warner Brothers decided another rewrite was needed to bring down the budget nearly in half  -after sets and locations we being built/scouted and Nick Cage showing up for costume fittings - Yes as Andy Sandberg says on SNL, Nick Cage is in every movie... Or almost was....

Burton, citing various differences with Peters and the studio, said, "I basically wasted a year. A year is a long time to be working with somebody that you don't really want to be working with." FROM WIKI

By now $30 million had been spent without a single frame filmed. A new writer Alex Ford came and went with his 7-movie arc "MAN OF STEEL" Ford said, "I can tell you they don't know much about comics. Their audience isn't you and me who pay $7.00. It's for the parents who spend $60 on toys and lunchboxes. It is a business, and what's more important, the $150 million at the box office or the $600 million in merchandising?

A list director and actors cam and went - including Will Smith to play Superman. CLEARLY Jon Peters is a big dummy when it comes to Superman.

Batman vs Superman
Bruce Wayne is in morning after the death of everyone form his life. trying to gather himself, he remarries, with Clark Kent as his Best Man - now divorced from Lois. Joker, kills the new wife at the honeymoon, Batman blames Superman (who is trying to rekindle Lana Lang romance), the two battle... After it is learned that Lex Luthor was pulling the strings to turn hero against hero, the two team up to take down the villain. We almost saw Christian Bale as batman fighting Josh Hartnett as Superman. The project was abandoned in favor of solo movie franchise options.


Superman Fly By / THE MAN OF STEEL
J. J. Abram had his turn with Superman. JJ has gone on to reboot Star Trek and slated to reboot Star Wars. This missed opportunity rebooted the origin story with far more Krypton Poliltics in the form a civil war, Kal is sent to Earth to fulfill a prophecy (Alluded to by Marlon Brandon in Richard Donner cut of Superman II) as Jor - El is locked in mortal combat with his corrupt brother Kata-El (Kara's father maybe should a sequel happened). Lex Luthor is a UFO obsessed government agent. When Superman exposes himself to the world, Kata-El's son, TY-EL, shows up with three other Kryptonians,. Clark is killed and meets his father in Kryptonian Heaven. Superman is resurrected, defeats the bad guys and we were to be left with a cliff hanger....

YADA YADA YADA We got Superman Returns LOL

SUPERMAN RETURNS SEQUEL
Sounds like this could have been cool. The same cast coming back form Superman Returns with a far more action packed script that may have finally seen Brainiac on the big screen.... BUT
Warner Bros. President Alan F. Horn explained that Superman Returns was a very successful film, but that it "should have done $500 million worldwide. We should have had perhaps a little more action to satisfy the young male crowd."[74] Singer reacted incredulously to the studio complaints, saying, "That movie made $400 million! I don't know what constitutes under-performing these days ..."[75] $175 million was the maximum budget Warner Bros. was projecting for the sequel, as Superman Returns cost $209 million



AND NOW.... MAN OF STEEL SEQUEL
I hope I am wrong. MAN OF STEEL was awesome. THAT IS HOW YOU REBOOT BYATCH!!!
Sequel is now starring Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. I loved The Social Network but pretty much hate every other Jesse Eisenberg movie. I am hoping they prove me wrong...  This would be a great Adult Swim parody series though....


FURTHER READING
http://www.impossiblefunky.com/archives/issue_15/15_superman.asp?IshNum=15

SUPERMAN REBORN (Jonathan Lemkin, circa 1994)

Superman battles Doomsday, only to die by the end of the first act. Lois has been mysteriously impregnated with Superman’s spirit. Their hastily gestated heir grows at an incredible rate to adulthood (think STARMAN). Of course, he saves the world from destruction in this campy, stillborn first effort.

SUPERMAN REBORN (Gregory Poirer, December 20, 1995)

Brainiac, credited here as the creator of Doomsday, has infused his creature with Kryptonite blood. Meanwhile, on Earth, Superman tries to deal with being an alien in love with a human woman via psychiatric help.
Dead by page 23, Superman’s corpse is stolen by an alien, Cadmus. A Brainiac victim, Cadmus becomes Superman’s sifu after resurrecting him on page 32. His own body deteriorating, Brainiac seeks Superman’s body as the perfect corporeal vessel. The baddie threatens the people of Metropolis to aid in the search (along with lame criminals Parasite and Silver Banshee).
Powerless, Superman wears a robotic suit that mimics his old powers until he can learn to use his powers again on his own (according to the script, they’re a mental discipline called “Phin-yar”–not to be confused with “The Force”). Bad guys are defeated and Superman feels at home by the end of Poirer’s script.

SUPERMAN LIVES (Kevin Smith, March 27, 1997)

It was a fanboy’s dream that quickly became a nightmare. Smith’s cornball script suffers from Peters-imposed ideas (polar bears guarding the Fortress of Solitude) and cheesy Smith dialogue.

CLARK
I know it sounds silly—where do I get off complaining? He—the guy who’s faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive... what’s the last one?

LOIS
Something about tall buildings.
This time Superman stays alive until page 38, where he’s again defeated by Doomsday. Superman’s defeat is aided by the lack of sunlight; the result of a merger between Lex Luthor and Brainiac. Their sun blockage isn’t as creative as the way Mr. Burns did it on “The Simpsons,” but it’s evil nevertheless. Superman is resurrected by Kryptonian robot, The Eradicator, which has lain dormant at the Fortress of Solitude. (The Eradicator made an appearance in the “Superman: Exile” story arc as an ancient mystical Kryptonian relic).
Rather than Superman’s lifeless body, Brainiac wishes to possess The Eradicator and its technology. Powerless (again), the resurrected Superman (back by page 50) is sheathed in armor (The Eradicator becomes his protective suit) until his powers return, courtesy of some sunbeams. Evil is vanquished and Brainiac’s annoying robot lackey, L-Ron, has a pithy closing remark.
Around the time that Smith’s script reached completion, Peters continued to act as the architect in Superman’s destruction by hiring Tim Burton to direct the new Superman film. For a hot second it seemed like a Smith/Burton/Cage Superman would really happen. Warner Brothers even had a poster made up for the February 1997 Toy Fair with a silver Superman logo on a field of black with the simple statement “Coming 1998” emblazoned across the bottom.
Had Burton’s Superman been made, it’s certain that the “stranger in a strange land” aspect of Kal-el on Earth would have been played to the hilt. Burton scrapped Smith’s script and brought in Wesley Strick to rework the puzzle pieces (Brainiac, Luthor, Doomsday, et cetera). Meanwhile, Burton was trying to cast his film:
Superman....Nicolas Cage (or Ralph Fiennes)
Lois Lane....Cameron Diaz
Jimmy Olsen....Chris Rock
Lex Luthor....Kevin Spacey
Doomsday....Hulk Hogan
Brainia....Tim Allen (or Jim Carrey)
Batman....Michael Keaton (cameo)
K (formerly The Eradicator)....Jack Nicholson (voice)
During this period of time, there was a flurry of activity. Smith’s script was out and Strick’s was in, until Warner Brothers nixed it. A string of new writers followed:

SUPERMAN REBORN (Wesley Strick, circa 1997/1998)
Going back to some of Poirer’s ideas, Strick’s script is said to have included Silver Banshee and Parasite as lesser villains again. Strick’s version of Superman was “darker,” much to Burton’s delight.

SUPERMAN: THE MAN OF STEEL (Alex Ford, 9/4/98)

While Hollywood tried to get Superman to straighten up and fly right, fans weren’t taking this silver screen hiatus lying down. The better known fan scripts floating around the internet included T.J. Grech’s SUPERMAN: LAST MAN OF KRYPTON, SUPERMAN 5 by Matt Fisher, SUPERMAN FIRESTORM by David B. Samuels, and SUPERMAN: THE MAN OF STEEL by Alex Ford. The story of Ford and his script is almost a Hollywood tale in itself. Alex Ford wrote this alternative Superman script and, after being encouraged by his wife, he connected with the right people to get it read. He even managed a meeting with Peters and additional Superman producer Lorenzo DiBonaventura. Feeling like a work of fan fiction, Ford’s script sets up a longer series of films which will include more villains than just Luthor, Brainiac, and Doomsday. Like too many Hollywood stories, Ford’s work was rejected and he was given a “don’t call us, we’ll call you” farewell.

SUPERMAN LIVES (Dan Gilroy, 9/20/98)

A pastiche of the previous scripts’ lesser elements, Gilroy’s draft has Brainiac on the hunt for Kal-el after having destroyed Krypton. Like Smith’s draft, we don’t see Superman fly—merely hearing a “whoosh” and a blur of color as would be done a few years later in “Smallville.” When Brainiac reaches Earth, he “merges” with Lex Luthor to form “Lexiac” (a la Alan Moore’s Superman story, “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”). He dispatches with Superman by page 61 via the Kryptonite-blooded Doomsday (shades of Poirer).
Typical of the other drafts, it’s only a matter of ten to twelve minutes (page 72) before the Man of Steel is resurrected. The Kryptonian device The Eradicator goes by “K” in this script. Again, K sheaths Superman and provides him with power as he heals. The majority of the script seems to be Lexiac chatting with Luthor’s slimy lawyer, Morris. Meanwhile, Superman goes on a bit of a spiritual journey as he learns to accept his role on Earth in order to regain his powers (page 101). Superman has some horrible lines as he fights Brainiac (“You’ve been recalled!”) and if Smith’s painfully self-reflexive “more powerful than a locomotive” line was bad, Gilroy surpasses this with the old “It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman!” on the final page.
It wasn’t long after this that Tim Burton was reluctantly fired by Warner Brothers. The reluctance came, no doubt, from Burton’s “play or pay” contract which netted him a significant amount of cash for doing nothing more than wasting time.
After Burton sought greener pastures in SLEEPY HOLLOW, Peters approached a number of directors such as Michael Bay, Shekhar Kapur, and Martin Campbell. They all turned him down, apparently because of Gilroy’s lame script. This draft was finally canned and William Wisher was brought in to start anew.

SUPERMAN LIVES (William Wisher, 8/23/2000)

In the myriad articles documenting the winding road that Superman followed to reach the big screen in 2006, Wisher’s script is often described as being influenced by THE MATRIX. Allow me to put that notion to bed. Apart from some Lex Luthor-created wireless internet technology a person can wear on their necks, there’s no hint of anything remotely similar to THE MATRIX in Wisher’s work. The “Lexmen” are a cadre of drones that act like MATRIX “agents” and manage to slow down the Man of Steel for a hot second.
If anything, Wisher’s script was a return to the roots of the Superman project, resembling the aforementioned Lemkin, Poirer, and Gilroy works. Kal-el, one of the scant few survivors of Krypton, is pursued by his father’s creation, Brainiac. He’s discovered on Earth just after he’s had a fight with Lois Lane about how uncomfortable he feels being an alien among humans. Lex Luthor allies himself with Brainiac in exchange for technology that gives life to his ill-fated “Lexlink” program.
Again, Brainiac employs Doomsday to kill Kal-el by page 60. His body is taken by Mal-ar, last Knight of Krypton, who swore to protect the infant prince before Krypton’s King Jor-el was murdered by Brainiac previous to the destruction of Krypton. Like Jesus, Superman is resurrected after “about three days” (page 79). Waking up a weakling, Kal-el wears a suit of “Krypton Armor;” a sleek black suit that gives him enhanced abilities. Doomsday doesn’t have a second shot at Superman: he disappears from the script after he’s served his purpose. Rather, Superman easily cuts his way through the Braniac-controlled “Lexmen” with a crystal sword looking like “a samurai from outer space” (page 98). While Lex Luthor tries to redeem himself as a human being before Earth explodes (Brainiac has a habit of destroying planets), Superman battles Brainiac in a rather anticlimactic scene wherein he regains his powers and, very un-Superman-like, kills the baddie while destroying his talking “skull ship.”
Again, wearing black and attacking the Luthor Building doesn’t really make Wisher’s SUPERMAN LIVES anything like THE MATRIX either. Oliver Stone was approached at this point to direct Wisher’s script but didn’t take the bait. It was time, too, for Nicholas Cage to cash in his chips. The new choice for Superman went to Russell Crowe. With Wisher’s moody Superman, Crowe may have been a good choice. The Aussie actor wasn’t interested. No director, no stars, and a script that took the project back six years. The wind had gone out of Superman’s cape. 

SUPERMAN DESTRUCTION (Paul Attanasio, 6/27/2001)

There’s little known about Attanasio’s work on the Superman project. Some reports have him utilizing a treatment by DC comics writer Keith Giffen with Superman battling the stellar bad guy Lobo (Wizard Magazine #118), while others have him turning in a 50-page treatment of his own that rehashes the death/resurrection plot line yet again.
While the Peters-plagued Superman project labored on for years, the Batman franchise sputtered under the direction of Joel Schumacher. Batman wasn’t being killed off in the comics. Instead, he was being recast in “Batman: Year One” in Frank Miller’s seminal tome. Miller reinvigorated Batman. A movie was said to be quick to follow. By 2002, Wolfgang Peterson was on track to bring BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN to the screen. This was to be followed by the long-delayed Peters project, which was set to be directed by McG. ASYLUM (Andrew Kevin Walker, Revised by Akiva Goldsmith 6/21/02) When you’re a kid, you pit people against each other in imaginary fights: “Who would win: Johnny Socko’s Giant Robot or Ultraman?” One of the classic match-ups has to be Batman versus Superman. Now that may sound like a one-sided fight; the man of steel versus the man in a bat suit. How could a mere mortal best Krypton’s favorite son? Read Frank Miller’s “The Dark Night Returns” to witness this superior throw down. But why would these two beacons of justice ever face off?
In Andrew Kevin Walker’s ASYLUM (also known as BATMAN VS SUPERMAN), Lex Luthor drives a wedge between the champions of Gotham and Metropolis via an elaborate plot that involves cloning The Joker and giving Bruce Wayne the perfect mate, only to take her away. Through his machinations, Batman’s motivation of revenge comes in direct opposition of Superman’s dogmatic protection of his human charges. Simply, Batman wants to murder The Joker and Superman won’t let him. The two come to blows in an epic battle that involves a lot of Kryptonite and millions of dollars in damage.
While the showdown between the caped crusaders wears out its welcome after twenty pages, the rest of the script is incredibly engaging and typical of Andrew Kevin Walker’s style. Yet, as is the case with Walker, his best work is often rewritten (SLEEPY HOLLOW, 8MM, etc).

SUPERMAN: THE MAN OF STEEL (J.J. Abrams, 7/26/02)

If fan boys were excited about Kevin Smith, they were beside themselves with J.J. Abrams. He was on top of the world with TV’s “Alias,” and the fervor over his involvement with Superman might have been topped only if Joss Whedon has volunteered to pen a script. The height of expectations were only equaled by the depths of disappointment when Abrams script was trashed by the hacks at the Ain’t It Cool News website.
Also known as “SUPERMAN: FLYBY,” the Abrams story was a revisionist tale with Krypton besieged by civil war between its King, Jor-El, and his upstart brother, Kata-Zor. The baby Kal-el is sent to Earth partly as a safety measure when Kata-Zor’s forces trash the Krypton capital, and also in hopes that he’ll fulfill a prophecy to return to Krypton as its savior. When Kal-el arrives on Earth, he’s adopted by Martha and Jonathan Kent. When they discover his powers, they try their best to have Kal-el/Clark suppress his abilities. In the process, they make him neurotic.
Isolated, persecuted, and thinking he’s the devil’s spawn, Clark meets a spitfire young lady named Lois Lane in college. An undeclared senior, he’s impressed by her pre-Freshman ambition to major in journalism and work in Metropolis at “The Daily Planet.” Creepily, he decides to do the same thing and, when he meets up with her years later, she remembers him only as the guy who had his zipper down.
Lois doesn’t give Clark the time of day. She’s more concerned with exposing and humiliating the government agency that’s wasting untold time and resources trying to prove the presence of alien beings on Earth. The hard-as-nails agent in charge of this alien-hunting squad is none other than Agent Lex Luthor. Sporting a brush cut and a massive attitude, Luthor has quite an axe to grind about aliens, so much so that he blows his top at a Congressman and gets canned.
Apart from the framing device of the script that starts out with Superman down and nearly out, battling super-powered aliens (a similar frame would be employed in the Abrams-penned MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 3), we don’t see Superman until nearly an hour into the film. This scene of Superman, saving Lois Lane as she’s aboard Air Force One interviewing the President, is something of a nod to SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE where Superman saves Lois as she’s on her way to interview the President. The scene and its aftermath— Superman setting down the saved airplane in a very public place (here Boston Commons)—also finds its roots in the John Byrne-penned “Superman: The Man of Steel” comic series. An amalgamation of these scenes would be found later in SUPERMAN RETURNS.
(I’m glad that the President’s plane didn’t crash. Otherwise, we might find Lois Lane on a mysterious island pursued by an unexplained smoke monster for a few years.)
This first appearance of Superman isn’t followed up by the montage of him going on a crime-fighting spree. Rather, Clark Kent is so pent-up about his role as Superman that he swears to never wear the costume again. This changes when he learns that Jonathan Kent (who up and died upon hearing the news of his son saving the President) would have wanted him to take the mantle of power and embrace his role as Superman.
News travels pretty fast. Really fast, apparently, as the radio and television waves from Earth reach Krypton in record time. This brings Kata-Zor’s son, Ty-Zor, and three other badass Kryptonians to Earth. To say that this brings about a lot of scenes reminiscent of SUPERMAN II is an understatement.
Again, Superman is defeated and killed. There’s a funeral but the Man of Steel isn’t down and out for long. He’s visited in death by Jor-El (who’s committed hara-kiri back on Krypton) and resurrected. With the help of some Kryptonite-fueled weapons, Superman defeats the four known Kryptonians as well as the secret-lurking Kryptonian, Lex Luthor, before this first chapter of a proposed series is over. There are mentions of characters either slightly seen or unseen in the screenplay, and Superman’s messianic return to Krypton is set to happen in the next film.
The changes to the Superman mythos-infuriated fanboys who forget that Kryptonite didn’t exist until the Siegel & Schuster story was translated to radio. This kind of re-imagining happens all the time in the superhero world; sometimes successfully (BATMAN: BEGINS), and sometimes not (CAT WOMAN). For all of the problems I had with the script, it was something new and not simply a recycling of the old, good ideas from the original SUPERMAN series.
Peterson stepped out and let BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN die in favor of TROY. Before the dust could settle, J.J. Abrams delivered his take on the Superman tale to Warner Brothers and everyone was elated with the possible exception of McG and apoplectic Superman fans. McG left to direct the sequel to CHARLIE’S ANGELS, and the ever-obnoxious Brett Ratner had his turn in the director’s chair.
Ratner hadn’t even had time to warm up his seat when the backlash against the Abrams script swelled into a shitstorm. When the opportunity presented itself, the RUSH HOUR auteur fled the sinking Peters ship. Oddly enough, Ratner would go on to direct the third film in the X-Men series while its former helmer, Bryan Singer, would defect to the Superman camp.

SUPERMAN RETURNS (Michael Dougherty & Dan Harris, 9/27/2005)

With his super heroic clout, director Bryan Singer managed to break away from most of the tenets laid down by producer Jon Peters. Gone were Brainiac, Doomsday, and the black suit. Still present was Superman’s pathos, a near death, and the red and blue “whooshing” suit (albeit a fairly dingy one).
Singer’s X2 screenwriters Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris made SUPERMAN RETURNS a continuation of the Superman story line from the Richard Donner films or, at least, SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE. There may be no mention of General Zod, Non, or Ursa but it’s apparent that Lois Lane bedded the Man of Steel. The product of their Fortress of Solitude union, Jason, spends the majority of the story as an asthmatic, bespectacled weakling except for one head-scratching, contrived moment.
The victim of an elaborate ruse, Superman returns to where Krypton ought to be only to find a deadly meteor field of Kryptonite. He manages to escape and get back to his adopted planet Earth five years after he departed. Instead of finding out how he got tricked and/or looking up his long-time nemesis, Lex Luthor, Superman hangs out in Smallville. Then he goes looking for Lex Luthor, right? Wrong. He goes back to Metropolis to learn that Lois Lane has moved on from Superman, even winning a Pulitzer for her piece “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman.” Ouch! Then he doggedly pursues the only man who’s come close to defeating Krypton’s favorite son... wait, no. He doesn’t.
Even after Jimmy Olsen, in his infinite wisdom, suggests, “Why don’t you guys track down Lex Luthor?,” on page 73, the greatest criminal mind of our time is swept to the wayside. This leaves a lot more time for Superman to mope around and retread dialogue from SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE. Meanwhile, Lex Luthor seems to be in his own film and pursuing a plot with earmarks of his ideas from SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE and SUPERMAN II only in reverse order. Luthor makes his way to The Fortress of Solitude before revealing his elaborate real estate scheme, paraphrasing his lines from the earlier films along the way as well. Who came up with this idea—the same guy who thought it’d be smart to build a second Death Star?
Superman finally catches up with Luthor on page 118 and they share all of three pages together in an anticlimactic showdown. Rather than squaring off like Kirk (William Shatner) and Khan (Ricardo Montalban) in STAR TREK II, Luthor and Superman are more like Hanna (Al Pacino) and McCauley (Robert De Niro) in HEAT.

SUPERMAN RETURNS (Bryan Singer, 2006)

Little stands out as being starkly different from the screenplay of SUPERMAN RETURNS to the final film version, except for the lack of explanation for Superman’s disappearance and the scenes of Superman flying (in a spaceship) amongst the ruined crags of Kryptonite asteroids.
The cuts between the Superman (Brandon Routh) story line and the Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) story line are jarring. The film moves from the moody introspective Kryptonian, who’s been dumped by Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth) in favor of the boss’s son, Richard White (James Marsden) to the hammy criminal mastermind and his Miss Teschmacher stand-in, Kitty Kowalski (Parker Posey). The worst character in the film has to be Superman’s bastard son, Jason (Tristan Lake Leabu) and his awful Adam Rich haircut.
While I can respect the decision to emulate Donner’s SUPERMAN films, aping these superior movies just made me long to see the originals. The John Williams score combined with the unnecessary cameo appearance by Marlon Brando only reinforced this desire. Overall, I would have rather have seen J.J. Abrams’s version of the story, as it strayed the farthest from the Jon Peters directives, divorced itself from Donner, and actually managed to feel like an original take on the Superman story.

Even if it hadn’t taken over a dozen years and millions of dollars to bring the next chapter of Superman saga to the big screen, SUPERMAN RETURNS would epitomize anticlimactic. Rather than breaking new ground or taking the Superman story in a different direction (see “Red Son” by Mark Millar), the film was just a rehash of a better film that predated it by nearly three decades.



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Superman with Christopher Reeves Franchise 1-4 plus Superman Returns 2006


Superman: The Movie (1978)
I was not even six years old when I saw this movie. I left wanting to fly and a life long obsession with the boy scout in blue tights. So much so every time I hear John Williams score, everything is right in the world. The price of a symphonic single is a whole lot cheaper than therapists LOL

This movie did what no one else could. We believed a man could really fly. And fly fast. And in 1978 that was extremely difficult. The only other two franchises that achieved this to me - Star Wars and Battlestar Gallactica (TV).

But so much more, we cried hard when Clarks adopted father dies of heart attack. We cry happy tears the first time Clark flies away from Fortress of Solitude. We laugh hard when Lois say "You've got me? Who's got you?". We laugh harder at Ned Beatty's Otis. And we are amazed to see the amazing
acting of Gene Hackman and Marlon Brando in a superhero movie...

For all this this will be my definitive superhero movie for all ages. All the CGI in the world cannot replace the writing and acting. MUST SEE.

Superman II
The only thing I did not like about this film is that I had to wait 2 years to see it after THE MOVIE. The fight scene in Metropolis with Zod and company will be unmatched action until Man of Steel, but still unmatched for its mix of action and comedy. The whole blowing of the city streets - did I just say that - almost feels like the Blues Brothers movie where the bigger the destruction the bigger the laugh. The guy on the phone is right out of Zucker, Abraham and Zucker (Airplane, Kentucky Fried Movie).

The only thing with this movie is the additional powers created. When did heat vision become telekinesis - Zod heats up shotgun then brings it to him all with heat vision. When did the fingers of krypton shoot power beams. When did Supe's S become a thermal blanket that can trap other Kryptonians. And when did Superman's Kiss become a memory eraser. That all being said, these are questions I made years later. Not 8 years old, I was still just happy to see red & blue fly.

Once again the acting of the new cast is superb. Why is it Brits do bad guy so well? I think the amazing Terence Stamp performance as General Zod is why the 1990s animated series made focused on Jax-Ur as the bad Kryptonian from Phantom Zone. Sarah Douglas is the ultimate Villainess of all time. Jack O'Hallaran is as comical as he is menacing as the Super Mongo known as Non.

Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut
I have been waiting to see this for years. I finally watched just last night. Any true fan needs to see this, however, the original is far better. Donner takes out a lot of the crap we question in Sup 2. But does not replace it. There fore we get no action. I hate not having the opening action scene with terrorists at the Eiffel Tower. Instead the missile from THE MOVIE originally headed for Iowa, collides with Phantom Zone glass imprint (Oh yeah, this is another element of the 2nd movie that seems strange - probably the worst example of the Phantom Zone - the only thing I think Smallville did well). The Eiffel tower scene from Sup 2 was one of the best opening action scenes from any of the movies that show Clark dealing with regular Earth bound disasters.

By skipping the OJ scene at the beginning of the movie, the OJ joke at Niagra makes no sense. And the alternate scenes - of Lois discovering Clark is Superman - are terrible. The changes made by Lester obviously save this movie. And then bringing back the same ending form MOVIE ONE - super flying speed to roll back time - may be more believable, but the kiss of forgetfulness is better story telling.

True fans should see this. Others will not like.

Superman III (1983)
OK, this movie -in my opinion - is one of the most underrated of all Superman showings. Richard Pryor obviously changes the game. Any other actor in that role would have been a total failure, but some how - for me at least, being a big RP fan - makes this a memorable movie. I love it. I wonder how much of teh script is saved by Pryor's ad libs. For using tar to formulate kryptoonite, the general presenting kryptonite to Superman, to all the dealings with the MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. (I am not old enough to remember that TV show but that is how every one refers to Robert Vaughn. I thought Annette O'Toole was the perfect Lana Lang.

The best part of this film is the Darker Superman, corrupted by tainted / imperfect factory made kryptonite. The battle of Superman vs Clark is the super hero fight club. And the battle with the Supercomputer is an Earth-Made Brainiac of sorts.

I say any Super fan has to see this film. I think today it stands up better than some of the others as the comedy is timeless, even if the special effects seem dated.

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
OK This is the one movie I just don't like. I try to. I want to. But this movie seems more like a 1940/50s style WAR BOND propaganda movie. Christopher Reeves basically makes this movie as an anti-nuclear protest. One makes a movie of a superhero - beyond financial gain - because there is a story to tell to big for TV or cartoon. This feels more like an animated short/TV made movie drawn out to long by second rate story telling (New Girlfriend for Clark etc). Even Gene Hackman seems old hack with this incarnation. He is ready to move on...

I suppose Mark Pillow was such a bad actor as Nuclear Man they had Gene Hackman provide the voice. Maybe that was the plan all along. ???

Two and a Half Men fans might enjoy a young Jon Cryer as Lenny Luthor.

Even the Double Date with Superman / Lois & Clark / Lucy is the makings of a bad sit com. We have enough of that on TV we don't need to waste money on a movie.

If you have never seen the movie find a cheap or free way to knock it off the DC Comics list. I ouwl still take this over Superman Returns 2006.

SUPERMAN RETURNS 2006 Superman Returns

OK. Like Richard Donnor cut I waited - like so many - WAY TOO LONG for this movie. But after 20 years I suppose expecting another Supermen THE MOVIE (Please scream THE MOVIE in your head to match my all caps please LOL) when we got another Quest For Peace (Superman 4). After so many Superhero films, reinventing the genre, this was the best they could do. I think this cast is better suited to Reopen Superman on Broadway. (Which would actually be interesting to see). This is too soft. You are playing right into the hands of all the people that have fled the franchise because Superman is too unbelievable. And because of this weak showing we had to wait 7 more years for MAN OF STEEL. TGFMOS!!!

All that beings said, this movie is far better than the last two from 1980s in regards to the non super-stuff. The writing is not too shabby. I think it gets a bad name - from me included - simply because we were expecting to be wowed and we got just OK.


FROM WIKI SUPERMAN THE MOVIE 
  • Marlon Brando as Jor-El: Superman's biological father on Krypton. He has a theory about the planet exploding, though the Council refuses to listen. Jor-El dies as the planet explodes but successfully sends his infant son to Earth as a means to help the innocent. Brando sued the Salkinds and Warner Bros. for $50 million because he felt cheated out of his share of the box office profits.[7] This stopped Brando's footage from being used in Richard Lester's version ofSuperman II.[8]
  • Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor: An evil scientific genius armed with vast resources who would prove to be Superman's nemesis. It is he who discovers Superman's weakness and hatches an evil plan that puts millions of people in danger.
  • Christopher Reeve as Clark Kent / Superman: Born on Krypton as Kal-El and raised on Earth, Superman is a being of immense power, strength and invulnerability who after realizing his destiny to serve mankind uses his powers to protect and save others. As a means to protect his identity, he works in Metropolis at the Daily Planet as mild-mannered newspaper reporter Clark Kent. Reeve was picked from over 200 actors who auditioned for the role.
  • Ned Beatty as Otis: Lex Luthor's bumbling henchman.
  • Jackie Cooper as Perry White: Clark Kent's hot-tempered boss at the Daily Planet. He assigns Lois to uncover the news of an unknown businessman purchasing a large amount of property in California. Keenan Wynn was originally cast, but dropped out shortly before filming because of heart disease. Cooper, who originally auditioned for Otis, was subsequently cast.[9]
  • Glenn Ford as Jonathan Kent: Clark Kent's adoptive father in Smallville during his youth. Jonathan is a farmer who teaches Clark ideal skills that will help him in the future. He later suffers a fatal heart attack that changes Clark's outlook on his duty to others.
  • Trevor Howard as the First Elder: Head of the Kryptonian Council, who does not believe Jor-El's claim that Krypton is doomed to its own destruction. He threatens Jor-El, "Any attempt by you to create a climate of fear and panic amongst the populace must be deemed by us an act of insurrection."
  • Jack O'Halloran as Non: Large and mute, the third of the Kryptonian villains who are sentenced to be isolated in the Phantom Zone.
  • Valerie Perrine as Eve Teschmacher: Lex Luthor's girlfriend and accomplice. Already cynical of Luthor's increasing grandiosity and disturbed by his cruelty, she saves Superman's life after learning that Luthor has launched a nuclear missile toward her mother's hometown ofHackensack, New Jersey. She shows a romantic interest in Superman, implied by her fixing her hair before she makes her presence known to him, and then by kissing him before she saves his life.
  • Maria Schell as Vond-Ah: Like Jor-El, a top Kryptonian scientist; but she too is not swayed by Jor-El's theories.
  • Phyllis Thaxter as Martha Kent (née Clark): Clark Kent's faithful adoptive mother. A kindly woman who dotes on her adoptive son and is fiercely devoted to her husband Jonathan. She is her son's emotional support after Clark is devastated by Jonathan's death. Thaxter was producer Ilya Salkind's mother-in-law.[12]
  • Susannah York as Lara: Superman's biological mother on Krypton. Lara, after learning of Krypton's fate, has apprehensions about sending her infant son to a strange planet alone.
  • Jeff East as the teenage Clark Kent: As a teenager, Clark is forced to hide his superhuman abilities, making him unpopular among his classmates and frustrating his efforts to gain the attention of classmate Lana Lang (Diane Sherry). Following the death of his adoptive father, he travels to the Arctic to discover his Kryptonian heritage (All of East's dialogue in the film is dubbed over by Christopher Reeve).[13]
  • Marc McClure as Jimmy Olsen: A teenage photographer at the Daily Planet. Jeff East, who portrayed the teenage Clark Kent, originally auditioned for this role.[13]
  • Sarah Douglas as Ursa: General Zod's second in command and consort, sentenced to the Phantom Zone for her unethical scientific experiments.
  • Harry Andrews as the Second Elder: Council member, who compels Jor-El to be reasonable about plans to save Krypton.
Kirk Alyn and Noel Neill have cameo appearances as Lois Lane's father and mother. Alyn and Neill portrayed Superman and Lois Lane in the film serials Superman (1948) and Atom Man vs. Superman (1950), and were the first actors to portray the characters onscreen in a live-action format. Neill reprised her role in the 1950s Adventures of Superman TV series, and also appeared as Lex Luthor's elderly wife in the opening scene of the film Superman Returns (2006).
Larry Hagman and Rex Reed also cameo; Hagman plays an army major in charge of a convoy that is transporting one of the missiles, while Reed plays himself as he meets Lois and Clark outside the Daily Planet headquarters. A then unknown John Ratzenberger briefly appears as a missile control technician. Two unknowns also have cameos, Edward Finneran and Tim Hussey, who were the teenage boys who won "The Great Superman Movie Contest", appearing as football players (in gray) during the scene with Clark as the equipment manager of the Smallville football team. David Petrou, the author of the making-of book about the film also appears briefly in that scene. 

 SUPERMAN 2
  • Christopher Reeve as Clark Kent / Superman: Born on Krypton and raised on Earth, Superman is a being of immense strength, speed and power. Morally upstanding and instilled with a strong sense of duty, Superman tirelessly uses his formidable powers, which he gets from the Earth's yellow sun, to protect the people of his adoptive homeworld. His alter ego is mild-mannered Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent. Superman's abilities include: X-ray and heat vision, vast strength, speed and invulnerability, super-intelligence, flight and the hitherto unknown ability to throw the 'S' symbol from his costume as a plastic trapping device of some description.[6]
  • Margot Kidder as Lois Lane: The beautiful, sexy, feisty, and intelligent ace reporter for theDaily Planet and Superman's love interest. Lois, is a driven career journalist, who lets nothing stand in the way of breaking the next big story and scooping rival reporters. While ignoring the potential consequences that sometimes put her in peril. She finds out that Clark is Superman, but her memory is erased when Clark kisses her.
  • Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor: Evil criminal genius and Superman's nemesis. Armed with vast resources and scientific brilliance, Luthor's contempt for mankind is only surpassed by his hatred for Superman. Luthor strikes a bargain with the three Kryptonian criminals in an effort to destroy Superman.[6]
  • Ned Beatty as Otis: Luthor's incompetent henchman.
  • Jackie Cooper as Perry White: Mercurial editor-in-chief of the Daily Planet newspaper and Lois and Clark's boss.
  • Marc McClure as Jimmy Olsen: Teenaged photographer at the Daily Planet.
  • Terence Stamp as General Zod: The ruthless, arrogant and megalomaniacal leader of three Kryptonian criminals banished to thePhantom Zone and unwittingly set free by Superman. Zod, upon landing on Earth and gaining the same super powers as Superman, immediately views humans as a weak and insignificant sub-species and imposes his evil will for world dominance. However, his arrogance causes him to quickly become bored with his powers and he is almost disappointed at how little of a challenge humans are. His insatiable lust for power is replaced however by revenge when he learns that the son of Jor-El stands in the way of his absolute rule of the planet.
  • Sarah Douglas as Ursa: Zod's second-in-command and consort. Ursa's evil will and power-lust are equal to and sometimes surpass those of General Zod's. Her contempt and utter disregard for humans and all life form as well as her twisted taste for destruction make her a very deadly adversary. She has an inclination to collect insignia and heraldry from people she defeats or dominates, such as the NASA patch from the EVA suit of an astronaut she kills.
  • Jack O'Halloran as Non: The third of the Kryptonian criminals, Non is "as without thought as he is without voice." At 7 ft (2.1 m) tall, Non is a formidable hulking mute, who easily matches Superman's strength but has the intelligence and sometimes curiosity of a child and communicates only with guttural grunts and growls. Though he lacks the mental ability to use his powers effectively, he does however possess the same taste for destruction as his Kryptonian companions.
  • Valerie Perrine as Eve Teschmacher: Lex Luthor's beautiful assistant and girlfriend who helps Lex Luthor escape from prison.
  • Susannah York as Lara: Jor-El's wife and Superman's biological mother.
  • E. G. Marshall as the President of the United States.
Gene Hackman, Valerie Perrine, Ned Beatty, E. G. Marshall, and Marlon Brando are the only actors who did not participate in the film's reshoots. Their scenes in Lester's version (with the exception of Brando) were sourced from Richard Donner's original shoot. Where additional shots were needed for continuity, Lester used body doubles in place of the original actors. Marlon Brando's scenes were excised entirely, due to the high fee the actor had demanded for the use of his footage in the film.
In the 2006 documentary You Will Believe: The Cinematic Saga of Superman (included in the DVD set Superman Ultimate Collector's Edition), Sarah Douglas says she was the only cast member to do extensive around-the-world press tours in support of the movie, as she was one of the few actors who held a neutral point of view in the Donner-Lester controversy.

SUPERMAN 3 CAST
  • Richard Pryor as August "Gus" Gorman: A bumbling computer genius who works for Ross Webster to destroy Superman.
  • Christopher Reeve as Clark Kent / Superman: After discovering his origins in the earlier films, he sets himself to helping those on Earth. After beating arch enemy Lex Luthor twice, Superman meets a new villain: Ross Webster, who is determined to control the world's coffee and oil supplies. Superman also battles personal demons after an exposure to a synthetic form of kryptonite that corrupts him.
  • Jackie Cooper as Perry White: The editor of the Daily Planet.
  • Margot Kidder as Lois Lane: A reporter at the Daily Planet who has a history with both Clark Kent and Superman. She is away from Metropolis on vacation to Bermuda, which put her in the middle of a front-page story.
  • Marc McClure as Jimmy Olsen: A photographer for the Daily Planet.
  • Annette O'Toole as Lana Lang: Clark's high school friend who reconciles with Clark after seeing him during their high school reunion. O'Toole later portrayed Martha Kent on the Superman prequel television series Smallville.
  • Annie Ross as Vera Webster: Ross' sister and partner in his corporation and villainous plans.
  • Pamela Stephenson as Lorelei Ambrosia: Ross' assistant and girlfriend. Lorelei, a voluptuous blonde bombshell, is well-read, articulate and skilled in computers, but conceals her intelligence from Ross and Vera, to whom she adopts the appearance of an superficial fool. As part of Ross' plan, she seduces Superman.
  • Robert Vaughn as Ross Webster: A villainous multimillionaire. After Superman prevents him from taking over the world's coffee supply, Ross is determined to destroy Superman before he can stop his plan to control the world's oil supply. He is an original character created for the movie.
  • Gavan O'Herlihy as Brad Wilson: Lana's former boyfriend.
SUPERMAN RETURNS CAST
  • Brandon Routh as Clark Kent / Superman: The Kryptonian superhero who disguises himself as a journalist. Stephan Bender portrays the teenage Clark Kent in a flashback scene. James Caviezel expressed interest in the role.[6] However, Singer believed only an unknown actor would be suitable for the part.[7] Routh was chosen from thousands of candidates interviewed at casting calls in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.[8] He had coincidentally auditioned for Clark Kent in the television seriesSmallville, but lost to Tom Welling. Routh had also met director Joseph "McG" Nichol for the role during pre-production of Superman: Flyby. Dana Reeve, wife of Christopher Reeve, believed Routh's physical resemblance to her late husband was striking.[9] To obtain the muscular physique to convincingly play Superman, Routh underwent a strict bodybuilding exercise regimen.[10]
  • Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor: An evil sociopath armed with vast resources and an extensive knowledge of science who is Superman's nemesis. Because of his Academy Award-winning performance in Singer's film The Usual Suspects (1995), and friendship with the director, Spacey was the only actor considered for Lex Luthor. The writers specifically had Spacey in mind for the part when writing the script.[11] Spacey's version of Luthor has the same comically exaggerated vanity and pompous arrogance of the earlier Gene Hackman version as well as the same strong interest in real estate, but Spacey's version is far less campy and more serious. Spacey later said that director Singer told him to play the character as "darker and more bitter" compared to Hackman and not to use the earlier portrayal as an inspiration.[14]
  • James Marsden as Richard White: The nephew of the Daily Planet editor-in-chief Perry White and fiancé to Lois Lane. Marsden said Richard acts as an emotional challenge for Superman, since the hero comes back to find that "Lois Lane picks somebody who's very Supermanesque".[15]
  • Parker Posey as Kitty Kowalski: Lex Luthor's henchwoman. She served as a prison nurse and would give Lex his examinations.[16]The character is based on Eve Teschmacher from the 1978 film, portrayed by Valerie Perrine.[17] Posey was the only actress considered for the role.[2]
  • Marlon Brando as Jor-El: Superman's biological father. Brando (who died in 2004) reprises his role from the 1978 film through the use of previous footage combined with computer-generated imagery. This required negotiations with Brando's estate for permission to have his footage used. Singer explained, "we had access to all of the Brando footage that was shot. There was unused footage that had Brando reciting poems, trailing off subject and swearing like a sailor."[18]
  • Tristan Lake Leabu as Jason Kent: The son of Lois Lane and Superman. The question of whether Superman or Richard is Jason's father is initially unclear. He suffers from asthma and other ailments, but it is later revealed that he is the son of Superman, when he displays superhuman strength and discomfort around Kryptonite.
Other cast members include Frank Langella who plays Daily Planet editor Perry White, a role originally attached to Hugh Laurie;[19] Sam Huntington as Daily Planet photographer Jimmy Olsen, Eva Marie Saint as Clark Kent's adoptive mother Martha Kent, and Kal Penn as one of Luthor's henchmen, Stanford. Jack Larson, who portrayed Jimmy Olsen in the 1950s television series Adventures of Superman, makes a cameo appearance as a bartender. Noel Neill—who portrayed Lois Lane in the television series and the film serials Superman(1948) and Atom Man vs. Superman (1950) -- appears as Luthor's elderly wife Gertrude Vanderworth. Richard Branson cameos as the pilot of the space shuttle. Another of Luthor's henchmen (Riley) is played by former Australian Rugby League player Ian Roberts.[20]
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