Fans who have been eagerly anticipating a new Superman film after the teasers that hit online a few months back, have been dealt what may be considered either a blessing or a slap in the face. The good news: The likelihood of a new Superman movie has gone up tremendously. The bad news: It seems that the soonest possible time that we will see it, is 2012 (When people will live in giant domes in the sky and travel in flying cars on the way to a day of work at Spacely's Space Sprockets.)

How did this turn of events come about? Well, it's a story filled with boring legal stuff that doesn't make for a good article. The gist of it is as follows: A bit of legal drama stirred up surrounding a recent lawsuit from the heirs of Superman creator co-creator, Jerry Siegel. The lawsuit was brought about by Joanne Siegel (his widow) and Laura Siegel Larson (his daughter) for damages from an alleged "sweetheart deal" of licensing fees paid by Warner Bros. to DC Comics (a partner of WB) which was allegedly below fair market value, thus depriving them of their percentage as co-owners of the legal rights. The court did not find things in their favor and determined that the fees were indeed within fair market value (and maintained the same for the deal between Warner and DC on the Smallville TV show.) HOWEVER --- acting per the agreement to avoid legitimizing the damages that the Siegels claim to have incurred, the court also ruled that Warner must commence filming on a new Superman film by 2011. So there you have it, the law has officially mandated a Superman sequel!

In that spirit, Alan Horn (Head of Warner Bros.) testified during the trial about the current state of the proposed film:

"We had hopes to keep the [Superman] character alive and to once again reinvent Superman. We are — our hope is to develop a Superman property and to try again. What hurt us is that the reviews and so on for the Superman movie . . . did not get the kind of critical acclaim that Batman got, and we have other issues with Superman that concern us.” 1

Given the state of the film that Horn described, 2012 is soonest possible time the film could be released. (Not taking into account casting drama, script issues, and overall bad luck during production.)

It seems that Superman really is up in the air (no pun intended -- well, maybe.) The initial hype earlier this year, was that the new film (reportedly titled Superman Unleashed) would indeed be a sequel that promised much more action. There were hints scattered around since then, that Brandon Routh (star of 2006's critically brutalized Superman Returns) was NOT completely out of the picture, despite the "failure" of the reboot in which he starred. With the recent revelation that Routh's contract has expired, we're not even sure about what we once thought we knew.

Personally, I blame the blandness of Superman Returns on the script itself. As the Man of Steel, Routh was actually pretty decent (perhaps we'll go with "passable"), and I think that given the right environment, he could really come into his own. Considering that "The Law" has now put significant pressure on Warner to churn this sequel out in the next three years, there is not enough time to start from the beginning. If you want to know what kind of a disaster can occur from rebooting too soon, I give you three words: Punisher War Zone. Give it another go with Routh, dammit! Get a decent script, packed with the action you promised, get Brainiac as the villain, and salvage this franchise, already!

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