Superman Returns, Superman’s Writers Don’t Return

Any Superman movie with a super-powered baby, confused Jesus allegories and a Lois Lane played by Kate Bosworth is bound to be disappointing, which is why Superman Returns was one of the rubbishest films in living memory.

Despite this, it looked like the creative team behind Superman Returns was going to stay in place for the proposed Superman Returns sequel, Superman: Man Of Steel. But that's not the case any more, because the two men who wrote Superman Returns, Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris, have bailed on the sequel to concentrate on their own movies. However, Superman: Man Of Steel is still happening - and rumour has it that Warner Bros wants to start the Superman story all over again as if Superman Returns had never happened. That's fine by us, and if it wants to refund us the money we paid to see Superman Returns and somehow reset our brains so we don't keep waking in the night screaming "But it's just so shit!" then that's equally fine too.

It's strange that people find it so hard to make decent Superman movies any more. It's not a new phenomenon - three-quarters of the Christopher Reeve Superman films featured either magic cellophane, computers that turn women into fright-wigged metal robots or Milton Keynes - but Superman Returns made it clear that nobody had really bothered to learn any lessons. Although Superman Returns topped the US box office it was still deemed to be a failure, partially because it took longer than usual to break even any partially because it stunk to high heaven of sun-dried rabbit testicles.

But, eventually, the decision was made to make the Superman Returns sequel Superman: Man Of Steel. Kevin Spacey had signed up for it and Brandon Routh was allowed to be Superman again so long as he keeps his junk tied down this time. Everything was set to go except for the fact that the Superman: Man Of Steel writers Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris have decided to jump ship right at the last minute. The Guardian reports:

The sequel to Superman Returns is having a little trouble getting off the ground, after the screenwriters who penned the 2006 update said they would not return to the job. Scribes Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris were expected to reunite with Bryan Singer, who will direct and produce the second instalment in the new franchise, entitled Superman: Man of Steel. But the pair have decided to concentrate on their own projects instead. As a result, studio Warner Brothers is now taking pitches from other writers and, according to Variety, is looking for a fresh take on the character - as if Superman Returns had never happened.

That's probably good news, actually, since Dougherty and Harris were presumably the men who decided to fill Superman Returns with scenes of Superman gazing lovingly at Lois Lane and her magical super-baby and then picking up an island and nothing else.

Look, it couldn't be easier to write a Superman movie that people want to see. Warner Bros, feel free to steal this idea: a mad professor finds some of Superman's toenail clippings and makes a super-powered super-robot from them that tries to kill Superman. Superman and the robot fight, throwing petrol tankers and cruise ships and nuclear missiles and buses filled with orphans and dinosaurs and the moon at each other, eye-lasering entire cities to pieces in the process. In the end Superman teaches the robot how to love and everything's OK again. The end. See? It's easy.

However, Warner Bros is denying that it wants to pretend Superman Returns never happened and plough on with a straight sequel instead. That's unfortunate because it means Kate Bosworth and the superbaby will still have a place in Superman: Man Of Steel. Is it too late to start a petition saying we're only OK with a sequel so long as Superman: Man Of Steel opens with a cot death and Lois Lane setting her face on fire so badly that she needs reconstructive cosmetic surgery to make her look like any other actress?

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Superman Goes in Search Of New Writers - The Guardian