Brett Ratner On The J.J. Abrams’ Superman That Might Have Been
Published by Jennifer Vineyard on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 at 12:25 pm.

’Superman Returns’

Once upon a time, Bryan Singer and Brett Ratner swapped movies – Brett got the third “X-Men” and Bryan got “Superman,” which in his hands was “Superman Returns” starring Brandon Routh. We all know how that turned out.

But what would have happened if Ratner had continued along his merry way and done the “Superman” he wanted? What would it have been about? Brendan Fraser, who saw the script written by J.J. Abrams, was impressed. So was Ratner, who filled us in on the storyline and casting plans.

“The original movie I was going to be a part of,” Ratner said, “took place on Krypton for about half of the movie. So it was much more otherworldly, and much darker, because there was a civil war on Krypton. You’d get more of the history.”

“The Death of Superman” and the art of Alex Ross.

“That wasn’t just darker, but cooler, in my mind,” Ratner said. “That was what we were going to model the visuals after. When you have to translate it to a cinematic world, it’s a whole different animal, and he’s one of the best Superman artists I’ve ever seen.”

If it’s as dark as Warner Bros. wants for their reboot of Superman , Ratner still has a shot at making it: “Maybe we can go back to it one day,” he said.

But sorry, Brendan Fraser, that’s not a shot for you, too. “I definitely agreed with Bryan Singer that you need an unknown actor,” Ratner said. “I was going to surround Superman with known actors, but it’s important to get an unknown. I love Tom Cruise, but to have someone like him who you see as Tom Cruise would be a mistake.”
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I agree that that would be awesome, however I do not think it would be successful. You have to consider that the only people that would be interested in hearing the story told from the VERY beginning are your die hard Superman fans. That just isn’t a big enough demographic to support a film like that to turn out a successful feature. The story has struggled enough with Superman jumping on to earth and using his abilites. The story has the potentiel to be the best Comic/Super hero movie, but some changes do need to be made. I hope someone is taking note from the television show "Smallville". The past few seasons have been very good. The story is told and portrayed to the audience in a way that I feel the Superman audience have wanted for a very long time. The story works so so much better when Clark Kent is a normal guy and not a clumsy, dorky, idiot. Clark works much better as a normal guy who gets angry sometimes, defends and saves his friends, and will fight for what he believes. Also the story works much better when its Lois falling for and chasing Clark Kent instead of Superman. I think she should THEN discover he’s Superman. Also and this is no secret, Superman really really needs someone to fight. The Lex thing has been beat to death, we get it. I think they need to do somehing epic with Doomsday, but he also would need a make over and a little history, much to the effect of what we’ve gotten on Smallville.