A further update on the possible/probable SUPERMAN reboot

This popped into my inbox today in response to yesterday's article about Louis Letterier "knowing" of a Superman reboot...

Mr. Matt Holmes, After your recent article was brought to my attention, I figured you would enjoy this. So far it hasn't been posted anywhere, but we know this image was sent to a few websites within the last day including IESB, SuperheroHype, Superman Homepage, and our site as well. Unfortunately for us, the image is part of a proposal we are putting together to pitch a reboot trilogy of Superman to WB. The artist's cousin who took the photo didn't know he works for me and I was one of the people copied on their email. It also included a number of pages to our script, but I'm trying to keep those under wraps still. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me any time. In regards to this recent news involving Mark Millar and now Louis Letterier, I can tell you that there are at least four groups preparing to pitch reboot ideas with us being one of them. There could be more.

Said image (I will keep the integrity of the person who sent it secret)... It appears to me Superman fighting off a Jet or something. Can anyone else make out exactly what this is? Then further intrigingly came this "educated guess" from one of our newly appointed news reporters David Lynch (no, not the director) and once he said this name, something clicked in my head. This is surely the guy Millar was talking about a while ago. This is the well known American action director who is attempting to restart the franchise, I'm convinced...

My guess for Millar€™s mystery Director is Zach Snyder. Following the success of 300 he became WB€™s golden boy, and had enough clout to finally start production on the long time coming adaptation of Alan Moore€™s Watchmen. The big boys and girls at WB have undoubtedly seen plenty of footage from Watchmen, and may be confident of another huge hit.

Snyder? Yeah. I think it could be him. He is young, hungry, has a very well received comic book adaptation under his belt and another hit hopefully on the way. He knows the character, he is good with budgets and getting things done on time and hassle free. He has shown with his remake of Dawn of the Dead he can be both respectful to a well established canon but also be brave enough to bring a new spin and creativity to it. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he got the gig after pitching a new reboot, in fact I would be kinda happy to see it. Furthermore, it was reported today in both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter that Warner Bros/DC were having lengthy summit meetings to discuss the long term plans of their comic book franchises on film. Over the last two weeks, two of the head honcho's at WB (Jeff Robinov and Kevin McCormick) have met with DC executives AND some of the top comic book talent including the likes of Jim Lee (Batman: Hush, All Star Batman & Robin) to discuss the future plans of Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, The Flash and probably also Superman and Batman... and how they could all be integrated in the same world ala Marvel's recent aggressive marketing. The key quote from the trade (note this wasn't said by WB or DC) seems to be this one...

a new agenda is being set, one that not only sees the DC characters emerge with a higher priority but also one that would see them developed with an overarching goal in mind.

Warner Bros. did however say...

"While we are not going to go into the specifics of the meetings, we're constantly looking at how best to exploit the DC Comics characters and properties. DC is an incredibly valuable asset to Warner Bros. and plays an important role across the entire studio by providing development and franchise opportunities for all media, including films, television, home entertainment, animation, consumer products, video games and digital platforms."

For those wondering, the status of the franchises of DC line up like this... BATMAN: Bale signed up for one more movie, Christopher Nolan expected to sign on the dotted line soon after the opening of The Dark Knight. My guess would be a 2011 release date, once again after Nolan has finished a personal and more smaller project in between ala 2006's The Prestige. SUPERMAN: Singer seems to be out... several groups of Hollywood talent are putting together pitches of a reboot or new direction to WB... similar to the situation Batman was in at the turn of the Millenium which resulted in Batman Begins. GREEN LANTERN: In October, at the height of the Justice League talk... Variety reported the surprising news that former Dawson's Creek writer Craig Berlanti (The Broken Hearts Club) had been hired to write and direct an origin tale of the Green Lantern. That was the last and only time we have heard anything on the matter. THE FLASH: Only a matter of days earlier, the trades also reported the equally surprising news that David Dobkin (Fred Claus, The Wedding Crashes) had been hired to direct a stand-alone and origin story of The Flash. Remember this was all reported during the height of JLA. Again, that was the last time we heard anything on the project. WONDER WOMAN:Brent Strickland and Matthew Jennisonwere hired in April to come up with a whole new script after the studio bought but then rejected their first spec set during the time of WW-II. It is expected to be an origin story but a release date or a greenlight has never been discussed or actually come close to happening just yet. JUSTICE LEAGUE: Dead in the water... for now. WB and DC will probably revive the project but keep it in continuity once they can get stand alone films of their other popular and above mentioned characters off the ground. You can read the massive amount of webspace myself, my fellow writers and of course you the OWF reader have wasted in heated discussions about the project since around this time last year... HERE. The REALLY sad fact is... at Comic-Con, if Marvel were so inclined they could promote IRON MAN 2, CAPTAIN AMERICA, AVENGERS, KICK-ASS, WOLVERINE and THOR... along with hints towards SPIDER-MAN 4, future X-MEN spin-offs and more. DC can't really do any of that. They don't have any future characters aside from the already shot and complete The Spirit and Watchmen, to promote. A sad reality which has made the recent discussions a vital part of their future building.