Anne Thompson has a report on the state of the “Superman” franchise at Warner Bros. and it tells us what we already assumed: “Superman” is on hold and going nowhere. What she does bring to the table, however, are details why.
WB are concerned about the Siegel lawsuit threatening to pry the intellectual property of “Superman” from D.C.’s hands and then who will eventually own and hold those divided rights. Siegel and Shuster families will retrieve the copyright back in 2013 and WB may settle before then. But it sounds like development won’t even start until that’s taken care of, which is pretty evident with or without the details.
What also seems clearly evident, but confirmed: the studio just has no direction or strong idea of how to reboot this thing (as our own Playlist contrib Gabe Toro would likely say to most of this, “duh, non-news”).
However the report does confirm that the rumors of the Wachowski brothers and their protege James McTeigue being approached were false (as we assumed). Though McTeigue himself seems clearly interested. We’re also amused to hear that “Kick Ass” comic-book writer Mark Millar’s pitch was received by WB with “scant interest.” Meanwhile Kevin Spacey tells MTV if he ran WB he would make a “Superman” sequel and appear as Lex Luthor again, but alas, you don’t work at WB now do you?