Routh is still THE MAN OF STEEL

It's mystifying to me that Warner Brothers haven't done more to secure Brandon Routh's signature for the JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA movie, which we have to presume has fallen victim to a strike delay as we are still yet to hear of any official cast announcements. Last summer Routh said he would be keen to reprise the role of The Man of Steel from SUPERMAN RETURNS and for all those who hated Singer's movie (and I was one of them too), I thought Routh did a decent job with what was pretty much a thankless role.

You see unlike Batman, the character of Superman had already been defined by the legendary performance of Christopher Reeve and for a young actor to follow in his footsteps it would be near impossible to match up. It's like Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones or Marlon Brando as The Godfather... these are iconic portrayals from actors who you would be unwise to imitate. I mean in comparison it's taken four decades for an actor to match up to Sean Connery's Bond. Yeah Lazenby, Moore, Dalton and Brosnan were all good in their own way, but none of them were imitators of Connery because it simply couldn't be done. They had to do their own thing, some being more successful than others. So this rumor debunk from AICN is one I am all in favour of. I would love to see the next Superman movie feel fresh and move completely away from the 2006 disaster and everything Richard Donner did in the past and give Routh some real "meaty" material to really get his teeth stuck into. Routh should be THE Superman for at least the next 10 years...

I just got off the phone with a very high-ranking mole who is absolutely in a position to know what's happening with this film, and he tells me that it is "absolutely false" that Brandon Routh is out as Superman for the stand-alone series. The only that that has been determined is that JUSTICE LEAGUE will not feature the actors from the other films. That's it.

After putting so much money, time and effort into getting Routh established as the new Superman in the public's eye, I think it's a bad move to recast his part. Routh would instantly bring a slight sense of authority to the JLA team with audiences already recongising him as Supes... and yeah they might be confused as to why there is a new Batman at the beginning but once the movie begins you would see that it's completely different from the Nolan universe. It's going to be a real interesting 2008 to see how all this develops but it's still not too late to pull the plug on JLA and come back later. There's no rush WB, this team-up movie could always happen some way later down the line.