Superman (casting, rumors, pix till release)

^But by that, do you mean actors they already know and like or actors who they like when they sit down and watch the movie, even if they've never previously heard of them?

I mean, the likes of Christoph Waltz in Inglorious Basterds or Cillian Murphy in Batman Begins would have been unfamiliar to most movie audiences before those movies, but their performances were so strong that they overcame their lack of marquee recognition factor.

 

I meant the weight of opinion amongst fandom. You're right that the general public wouldn't have the same point of view.

 

If Batman Begins is the model for this movie, then I think we can expect a Superman villain that hasn't gotten the cinematic spotlight, and dealt with in a more naturalistic manner as Nolan and Goyer did with Ra's Al Ghul.

Either that or they've finally found a way to make Richard Pryor's character from III really work this time around — played by Eddie Murphy, of course.

 

Either. They'd care more about whether they enjoyed the story than about what elements were used from a pre-existing mythology they might have little familiarity with.

The same objection applies. How can we know what the weight of opinion in fandom actually is? A few dozen people posting on bulletin boards are not a statistically representative sample of the entire fan community. It's far too small a sample, and far too biased since it's not a random sampling. It only shows what the subset of fandom that chooses to participate actively on computer bulletin boards thinks. That can't be assumed to be the same thing that fandom as a whole thinks.

 

Fandom - especially in regards to superhero films - has a robust presence online, so it's a lot more than a few dozen people. You're right that it's more of a segment of fandom rather than fandom as a whole, but I think in most cases online fandom is broad enough to give a good sense - albeit unscientific - of the weight of opinion in fandom as a whole.

 

^It's still not a statistically reliable sample, because it's self-selected. For instance, as a rule, people who object to something are more motivated to comment about it than people who are satisfied with it, so a forum like a BBS or a magazine's letter column is always going to be disproportionately weighted in favor of negative opinions. Also, there can be economic, class, or gender differences between the portion of fandom that participates actively online and the portion that doesn't.

At best, Internet chatter can be seen as a flawed but potentially useful indicator. Making casual blanket statements like "Most people want to see X" as though it were a proven fact is simply reckless.

 

Yes, it's a flawed but potentially useful indicator. I agree. For instance one can glean that Brainiac is a very popular choice amongst fandom to be the villain in the next Superman film, probably the top pick. That's based on an unscientific sample, but nevertheless a broad enough sample, in my opinion, to reflect the weight of opinion in fandom at large, especially since there's a lot of discussion about what people want to see and not just what they don't want to see - so it's not just a case of negative opinion overwhelming positive opinion. That doesn't mean, though, that Zod would end up being an unpopular choice, especially if played and written well.

A reckless statement about who people want to see as the villain in the next Superman film? Oh, no!

Anyway, as I clarified in my earlier response, one can look at online chatter as a pretty good, albeit unscientific, representation of fandom's views. So I had already expanded and clarified on that point.

 

Okay, but why does it matter what "fandom" allegedly wants? A movie needs to appeal to a general audience to succeed. Any tentpole movie that only appeals to the existing fanbase won't sell enough tickets to make back its budget. And there really isn't any need to cater to the fanbase, since they'll come to see the movie anyway, even if it's just to complain about it. It's a sucker's game trying to base a movie on what "fandom" wants. A film needs to be designed to have a more universal appeal.

Of course, what good storytellers do is to simply tell the stories that they think are most worth telling, rather than simply pandering to what they think their audience will want. If you give the audience what it asks for but do it poorly, the movie will be a failure. But if you give the audience something totally unexpected, even unwanted, and do it very well, the movie will be a success. So "what fandom wants to see" really shouldn't be a consideration -- not if you define it in terms of what characters or format or plot points to use. Those are just the ingredients. The quality comes in how they're put together. What I, as a fan, want to see is a good, well-made, imaginative story, regardless of what characters it uses.

 

Yeah I'll bet accounting has more to do with all of this than we are privvy to. Every actor in Hollywood is botoxed into artificiality and nobody wants to hire them? Very imaginative. Supes is an alien comic book character - if he looks a bit inhumanly perfect, that's right in line with the role.

There's nothing about Cavill that suggests he'd be a particularly good Supes. He has no genre following, and he's a bland, middle of the road actor (based on his performance in The Tudors).

Just compare his performance to another actor in The Tudors, James Frain. Now that guy I could see playing a comic book character! He just took over every scene he was in - he definitely has presence. And sure enough, he's playing a comic book character on TV now. The show is sure to be cancelled soon, but it's not his fault.

 

I'm not saying fandom should be pandered to. Someone had alluded to Zod being the villain most fans want to see and Jackson Archer said that isn't so and I agreed with JA. We weren't saying that fandom is right in their view or that that view should be accomocated by the filmmakers. The weight of fan opinion is sometimes right in terms of what'll work for the general audience at large and sometimes wrong.

 

As an observation, Sam Raimi was persuaded to put Venom in Spider-man 3 because 'the fans want to see him' (according to Avi Arad). Look how well that worked out ...

 

True, but that's not to say Venom couldn't have been used effectively as a villain in a Spider-Man film, though, either in a drastically rewritten Spider-Man 3 or in a later film. Spider-Man 3 was just an overstuffed mess.

 

^ The point is though, the writers and directors have to tell the story they want to tell, not to be forced to tell another one to keep the fans happy.

 

I partly agree. The story is going to work best if its something the filmmakers really believe in and want to tell. However, in the case of adapting comic books or novels to the screen you want filmmakers who get the material and can deliver something that fans and the general audience alike will respond positively to, who have that knack of knowing where to maintain fidelity to the source material and where to make changes in a way that'll find wide favor.

In the case of Spider-Man 3, I think most fans would have been perfectly happy with The Sandman as the sole protagonist and shoe-horning Venom in was an unnecessarily panicky move on the producers' part. They should have left Venom to a future film made by filmmakers with an affinity for the character.

 

I personally think and has been discussed before this and future Superman films would need more than 1 villain...much like Nolan's Batman movies where there are levels of villains...putting all your eggs on just 1 villain can be kinda risky and that is not to say it wouldn't turn out well. But like one movie having Morgan Edge & Intergang, Metallo & Lex...hinting at Zod for the next film and then for the next film Lex, Brainiac & Zod(and Friends) for the next film hinting at Darkseid or Doomsday as the big bad for the 3rd film. Feel free to tear this apart cause I know some of you will.

 

I don't have a problem with multiple villains in principle. There's a way to use multiple villains effectively and a way to mess things up. It's all in the writing. I'd like to see multiple villains in the Superman films - particularly in terms of using some villains as henchmen where they wouldn't necessarily need much of a character arc of their own.

 

I'm just suspicious of any statement about "what the fans want." I've never known "the fans" to be in universal agreement on anything. The only thing the Internet does demonstrate clearly about fan opinion is how passionately divided it is. For every fan who insists the next Superman film must have Zod or heads will roll, there's another fan who insists that the studio will be sucked down into hell if they dare to use Zod. For every fan who's disappointed they didn't cast Brandon Routh or Tom Welling, there's another who's profoundly relieved that they didn't. In my experience, when people say "The fans want X," what they're actually saying is "I want X and I'm pretending my own opinion is a universal consensus so that it sounds more emphatic."

 

Is this is what has gotten people in a tizzy...

I think this was just a throw away line by Admiral Young. I don't think he believes this. I could be wrong...but from talking to him I feel this isn't something he believes...or believes he speaks for the fandom in any way.

 

^No, I was responding to the final sentence in post #339: "Yeah, most people want to see villains who have never been featured on the big screen before."

 

^
Either way it seems AY comment started it all. With JA response and then OoMVM.

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Here is an interesting article; http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/02/05/zack-snyder-my-favorite-superman-artist-is/

I wonder how this will play into Snyder's approach to Man Of Steel...