SMITH + FAVREAU + SUPERMAN

[Jetfire]

I know this will never happen. I know Kevin Smith was given a chance to take on writing a Superman script in the 90's...

Wouldn't this be the best bet for a Superman film to be a success???

Kevin Smith & John Favreau I think could really make the epic Superman movie we have been hoping for since the Superman I & II.

 

[Kelso]

I thought the title was referring to Will Smith.

 

[Ward Fowler]

I really like Kevin Smith but I don't think his style is a good fit with Superman. I read his script and I wasn't impressed at all.

 

[Broccoli]

I thought the title was referring to Will Smith.

As did I. That would be a very out there casting choice for Supes/Clark Kent....like Nick Cage out there...

I really like Kevin Smith but I don't think his style is a good fit with Superman. I read his script and I wasn't impressed at all.

In fairness to Smith, he wasn't really given a free reign to do what he probably wanted to do. He was told to put various, occasionally bizarre, things in the script by Jon Peters.

 

[TheBrew]

The best part about Kevin's script was hearing him tell about how it came apart.

"Giant fucking SPIDERS!"

 

[Ward Fowler]

In fairness to Smith, he wasn't really given a free reign to do what he probably wanted to do. He was told to put various, occasionally bizarre, things in the script by Jon Peters.

Yeah, I know. I saw "An Evening with Kevin Smith". My problem with the script wasn't so much the plot devices that were force on him, but the dialogue. IMO he didn't change his style enough to make it appropriate to a Superman film.

 

[gastrof]

I thought the title was referring to Will Smith.

As did I. That would be a very out there casting choice for Supes/Clark Kent....like Nick Cage out there...

Cage at least looked a little like the character might look. I'm sorry, but casting Smith would be like casting a blonde guy as Superman.

Bringing comicbook characters to life onscreen should mean they LOOK like the character.

I hate the idea of putting just ANYONE who's "cool" or "a bombshell" into a role and figuring it'll fly.

No pun intended.

 

[O'Dib]

A blond guy could dye his hair.

 

[Shazam!]

Will Smith could dye his face.

 

[Sagart]

Will Smith could dye his face.

So he'd be the black dude, playing the alien dude, playing the white human dude.

Ok.

 

[Captaindemotion]

I thought the title was referring to Will Smith.

As did I. That would be a very out there casting choice for Supes/Clark Kent....like Nick Cage out there...

Cage at least looked a little like the character might look. I'm sorry, but casting Smith would be like casting a blonde guy as Superman.

Bringing comicbook characters to life onscreen should mean they LOOK like the character.

I hate the idea of putting just ANYONE who's "cool" or "a bombshell" into a role and figuring it'll fly.

No pun intended.

I agree in principle with what you're saying but I actually think Will Smith would be a better Superman than Cage. I like Cage a lot, but he is too quirky, offbeat, redneck, stoner, geeky and balding to be Superman. Smith at least looks like a conventional square-jawed superhero.

I'd take a black Superman over a balding one with a mullet and nose the size of the Fortress of Solitude. Remember the pic that was doing the rounds here a few weeks ago? Eeeeek!

 

[ClayinCA]

^ Or they could, I dunno, cast someone who looks like Superman.

 

[RobertScorpio]

I really like Kevin Smith but I don't think his style is a good fit with Superman. I read his script and I wasn't impressed at all.

Wow..a first!! You and I agree on this totally!!!

Rob

 

[Aragorn]

In fairness to Smith, he wasn't really given a free reign to do what he probably wanted to do. He was told to put various, occasionally bizarre, things in the script by Jon Peters.

So Jon Peters was the first Avi Arad?

 

[RobertScorpio]

In fairness to Smith, he wasn't really given a free reign to do what he probably wanted to do. He was told to put various, occasionally bizarre, things in the script by Jon Peters.

So Jon Peters was the first Avi Arad?

Jon Peters was involved? I will give smith a pass on this one then..oye...

Rob

 

[Ward Fowler]

I really like Kevin Smith but I don't think his style is a good fit with Superman. I read his script and I wasn't impressed at all.

Wow..a first!! You and I agree on this totally!!!

Rob

Miracles can happen!

 

[FluffyUnbound]

I don't know if it's possible to really put Superman on screen in a compelling way any more without making dramatic changes to the character of a kind that would put off fans.

I never got into Smallville so I don't know how the screenwriters there took care of the #1 problem with Superman as a film character: he only has one vulnerability, so every time you make a movie about him it has to include, "...OK, and then the villain has some Kryptonite..." With the other possibility being, "...OK, and then the villain kidnaps - X - to hold them hostage and threaten Superman..."

There are just more ways to take Batman or Spiderman as characters because they can lose in a wider range of ways.

But if you start using dramatically different origin scripts, you can tweak the character's vulnerabilities to make them what you want them to be. That's probably why the studios find it so tempting and have commissioned scripts that do this. It's not because they're deliberately being dicks, they just don't want to keep making Superman 1 and 2 over and over again.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I'd be up for a Kevin Smith written, Jon Favreau directed Superman movie starring Brandon Routh! I enjoyed the Smith draft of Superman Lives even known all the problems he had to deal with including plot and the very nature of Superman himself. I think he'd write a much more traditional Superman given carte blanche and Favreau's input would only help him...apperently he's been very involved with the Iron Man 2 script and the later drafts of Iron Man.

 

[Captaindemotion]

^ Or they could, I dunno, cast someone who looks like Superman.

Which is why I said I agreed in principle with the previous poster, who said that actors should look like the comic characters they're playing. But for the purposes of that post, I was talking just in the context of Cage v Smith.

 

[O'Dib]

I don't know if it's possible to really put Superman on screen in a compelling way any more without making dramatic changes to the character of a kind that would put off fans.

I never got into Smallville so I don't know how the screenwriters there took care of the #1 problem with Superman as a film character: he only has one vulnerability, so every time you make a movie about him it has to include, "...OK, and then the villain has some Kryptonite..." With the other possibility being, "...OK, and then the villain kidnaps - X - to hold them hostage and threaten Superman..."

Not entirely true. Supes has been beaten, nay, killed, by a character who was simply more superstrong and invulnerable than he is. No kryptonite or kidnapping involved. Just a straight up fist fight going on for several issues.

The problem with the movies IMHO, has always been the over-reliance on Lex Luthor as main villain. Obviously, HE needs the plot elements you mention to threaten Supes. The more recent comic book movie convention of killing off members of the rogue gallery within the feature they debut in is probably a response to this flaw of the Superman series.. which has, in ways, invented the genre, hasn't it? Admittedly, most other Supes villains are kinda lame. The sad thing is, if they go the reboot route, the first movie pretty much needs to have Lex, again!