Do you want to see "Man of Steel" first?
Make sure you're up to speed on your "greatest son of Krypton" knowledge to WIN tickets to our special screening of Man of Steel.
Why am I more excited to see the new Superman movie Man of Steel than I have been about any one movie since the Dark Knight before it, or even the Matrix before that?
Well I think it could have something to do with the fact that it is produced by the man who gave us Batman Begins – Christopher Nolan. Now he is producing Man of Steel and he has had a near perfect record of excellence if you look at his past accomplishments; Memento, Inception.
But it does make me think – will Christopher Nolan, as a producer, be able to do what Richard Donner did originally when he brought Superman to the big screen for the first time.
One must remember Donner’s challenge was to convince movie goers that a man could fly without it seeming too comic book like or laughable or even sci-fi. It was to be a 100% action/drama where the protagonist had the ability to fly.
How did Richard Donner go about accomplishing this impossible feat? Well his first bold move was the genius casting of acting heavyweight Marlon Brando as Superman’s father “Jor-El” which gave the movie so much more credibility and also Gene Hackman as Lex Luther.
Together these two gave the movie all the credibility it needed. The next step is introducing the viewing public to two unknown actors to play the leads! What? Inconceivable, I hear you say. He did this so that you did not conjure up characters from their previous work in your mind- you needed to see Clark and Lois for the first time, not the actors representing these two dynamic characters. Hence: the unknowns in Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeve.
Now, if Richard Donner had put this much care and thought into just the casting, one can only imagine what he did with the script, filming, cinematography etc… Donner accomplished with his Superman what nobody had been able to do since the character appeared on the first issue of DC comics’ Superman in 1938; Donner made him believable- and you had to believe in him if you were going to accept his message. Which is…Hope.
Christopher Nolan has emulated Donner in the heavyweight casting- Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, Diane lane, Amy Adams and Lawrence Fishburne, then does the same flip around with casting a relative unknown in Henry Cavill as Clark Kent/Kal-El/Superman.
Now how does Christopher Nolan pull the rabbit out of the hat and make his story fresh and get us back to that feeling of hope? Well, he is going to tell the story from the standpoint that the inalienable truth about Superman is that he is from Krypton…another planet…Superman is an alien! Please don’t scoff and think this movie is going to be a marriage of Superman and E.T. No, think more on the lines of Superman and John Carpenters Starman (1984) with Jeff Bridges.
Therein lies the drama; how do you become the saviour of the human race knowing full well that if they ever found out that there was life on other planets, it would throw everything that they understand about their humanity out the window.
So, why am I so excited? Nolan has already done with Batman what Donner did for Superman, but now that Nolan has been given the reins of the most popular superhero ever, will he rise to the occasion or will he just deliver a re-cycle job? I believe the former, not only because Nolan was brave enough to finally put Superman’s underwear on the inside, but it strikes me as just the kind of challenge that Nolan needed.
(How to make an alien the most loved human)
Richard Donner’s Superman was life changing. Christopher Nolan’s Batman was life changing and now with Nolan producing and Zach Snyder (Watchmen & 300) directing Man of Steel which releases in South Africa on 28 June (US 14 June) - this will probably be one of the most exciting moments in recent cinema going history.
But don’t just take my word for it. Check out the trailer for yourself.
- By Darren Maule
Then listen to @BreakfastStack @ecr9495 to WIN