A Superman Trilogy??? I'll Take It!

Mark Millar is famous for his comic book work on Superman, Batman, Fantastic 4, you name it. Now, he's in talks to resurrect the "Superman" film franchise (again) with what he hopes to be an epic, "Lord of the Rings," scale trilogy telling a complete Superman saga from the superhero's origins to whatever of the many directions they choose to go in. His vision is to have 3 films, with a comprehensive running time of about 7 hours, an average of 2 hours and 20 minutes for each film. That's a whole lot of the Man of Steel. Does this mean they're going to go the "Death of Superman" storyline route? I hope so, since even though the Doomsday character was nothing more than a big goon with bones sticking out of him, it is still a story that would translate amazingly onscreen.

It is also something that hasn't really been done before in any superhero film, where the hero dies, with the exception of the Phoenix storyline they built up at the end of the second "X Men" film. Unfortunately, director Brett Ratner took the franchise tumbling down the ladder rung by rung with where he went in the third and final "X Men: The Last Stand." This single-handedly ruined one of the biggest setups from a previous film that I have ever seen; the movie was decent, but not near the second film. The transition from the end of "Batman Begins," setting up the Joker in the next film, to the fantastic "Dark Knight," is an example of what Ratner should have orchestrated I guess we can't blame him too much though, since we shouldn't expect much of a superhero film coming from the guy who helmed the "Rush Hour" trilogy.

If similar fashion is taken like "Batman Begins," and "X2," I think a great setup would be to have Doomsday enter the picture at the very end of the second film in the trilogy, with his impending arrival shown to the audience but not to the characters in the film. Then, have the first half of the third film be his entrance and havoc wreaking, with the death of Superman coming about 1/3 of the way into the film, and his resurrection being the big payoff at the end of the trilogy. But Millar gets paid to do this stuff and unfortunately I don't, so we'll just have to wait and see. Hopefully, they can get three films green lit, which is their biggest hurdle since "Superman Returns," supersucked both financially and cinematically.

Back to Millar, since the "Death of Superman" story is one of my whimsical pipe dreams at this point. Besides his endless and impressive comic resume, if you are questioning his "Superman: the Movie" devotion, here are some tidbits of information for you. He bought the cat from the first "Superman" film from 1978 off of eBay. You ask how a cat could be alive at 30 years old? The cat is dead, stuffed, and in his house. He also has one of Christopher Reeve's capes from the first film, hanging in his house, and has dined with the original film's director Richard Donner. The first film was said to be "Superman Returns" director Brian Singer's biggest inspiration, but the way it translated to me and many others was, that "Titanic" and an episode of "Melrose Place" were Singer's biggest spring boards for that garbage film we waited almost 20 years for. Maybe it's a bit harsh, but after he made the first two "X Men" movies, a lot of people just expected much more.

If you'd like to see more on Millar discussing his new comic book, "War Heroes," about people with super powers fighting the war in Iraq, as well as his vision of the new "Superman" films, G4TV interviewed him at the Golden Apple comic book shop in Los Angeles. The video and article can be seen here:
http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/688752/Mark_Millar_Working_On_Superman_Trilogy.html

From what he says, I think this is the most perfect person they are going to find out there who can bring the biggest comic book superhero back to life again on the movie screen. Cheers to Mark Millar!