Chris Nolan has accepted an advisory position for the next Superman movie, a complete reboot (yet again) of the franchise. Currently, Chris’ brother Jonah is busy writing the next Batman movie with David Goyer, each of whom penned the last film.

From Deadline Hollywood:

Let us emphasize that Superman 3.0 is in the early stages of development. And we doubt Nolan would direct. This wouldn’t be a sequel to Superman Returns but a completely fresh franchise. As one of our insiders reassures: “It would definitely not be a followup to Superman Returns.” Nolan coming on board follows a hiatus period for Superman after that 2006 reboot as the studio tried to figure out whether or not to make a sequel to that version starring Brandon Routh directed by Bryan Singer. As recently as this summer, Warner Bros was still contemplating how to proceed. We were told that ”Bryan or Brandon are not completely out of it yet. But Warner Bros doesn’t have a handle yet on it, either. [Producer] Jon Peters is trying to make something happen since he stands to benefit financially. But they [the studio] need to hear a great story that makes sense.” Another insider explained to us, ”We know what we don’t want to do. But we don’t know what we want to do. We learned a lot from the last movie, and we want to get it right this time.”

Fans have long been yearning for Superman to finally get the big screen Nolan-ized treatment this classic superhero deserves. Warner Bros clearly has learned from its attempt to follow the mediocre 1978-1985 quartet of movies starring Christopher Reeve and produced by Ilya and Alexander Salkind, with 2006’s underwhelming Superman Returns. That inbetween period was plagued by long delays and budget troubles and script misses. In 1997, original Batman director Tim Burton tried to make a Superman movie starring Nicolas Cage. Around 2004, J.J. Abrams wrote a film that was the first leg of a trilogy. Abrams wanted to direct, but had only directed episodes of his TV series (and wouldn’t make his feature directing debut until 2006’s Mission:Impossible III. McG and Brett Ratner separately were attached to that film. Ratner got closest, but Warner Bros was wary of a budget that swelled to $250 million, and which seemed risky after established star Josh Hartnett turned down the 3-picture deal that could have brought him $100 million in salary. After that, Warner Bros bosses didn’t embrace Ratner’s s choice of soap opera actor Matt Bomer to star.

A compilation of the worst Batman villains has been posted and it is sure to spark debate. The Joker coming in at #5? Mr. Zsasz at #1?

The Joker:

This guy is only #5 out of respect for all the good Joker stories that there have been. Unfortunately, most all of those stories were published before 1988, which is coincidentally around the time The Killing Joke was published. It’s not like the Joker was a harmlessly comical jackanape before the late 80s, but man, turning him into a quasi-genocidal embodiment of mass murder and psychological torture as a way of life really stretches credulity, and that’s saying something in the context of a book predicated on a mentally ill billionaire dressing like a bat in order to beat up criminals with the putative support of local law enforcement. I had even forgotten, until Tucker reminded me, the bit in Joker’s Last Laugh where – having almost destroyed the entire planet by drugging a whole bunch of deadly super-villains with Joker toxin and trying to kill the President of the United States – the Joker is once again saved by the Dark Knight performing CPR after Nightwing almost beats him to death. Seriously: the character has become so perversely demonic that keeping him alive in-story warps and distorts every other character and plot element around him. The Batman – and half-a-dozen other heroes – have saved his life so many times, it’s stupid. And sad. Still: we’ll always have “The Laughing Fish,” and he was good on Batman: The Animated Series.

I mean, seriously, heroes don’t want to kill villains, even the worst villains, because that would prove that “we’re no better than them!” Does that mean a cop who fires his gun is no better than the bank robber firing at the cop? Really? I’d like to see you explain that to the local police union. The answer to this question is simple: don’t turn every villain into a mass-murderer and we can go back to not caring if the Justice League forgets to read Felix Faust his Miranda rights.

Source

Frank Miller revitalized Batman in graphic novel form when he unleashed The Dark Knight, which told the tale of an aging Batman reluctantly coming out of retirement. According to an interview with the Hughes Brothers, who are set to open their latest movie The Book of Eli, Warner Bros studio approached the team about possibly making Miller’s version of Batman starring none other than Clint Eastwood.

“I remember how dark the comic book was. Batman was old. He had to rely more on his tools and other sh*t, and he was a decrepit, 60- or 70-year-old man in this comic book,” said Albert Hughes. “I remember saying to them back then, ‘We want to do this, and you should get somebody like Clint Eastwood to do it’.”

Even though the studio offered the project to the brothers several times, the feeling was that “The Dark Knight Returns” would be the end of Batman movies. “We were never going to do that. We were telling them it was the death of their franchise,” Albert laughed. “Looking back now, we definitely would’ve killed that franchise.“

Bidding starts at 12pm noon today on a very large collection of props and artifacts from the likes of Amelia Earhart, Michael Jackson and Stan Winston. We’ve included a more complete list below, but some particular items worth noting are Gus Grissom’s space flight suit, Michael Jackson’s glittery white glove, a full-scale male T-Rex head from Jurassic Park, multiple Terminator endoskeletons, Kirk’s Starfleet uniform from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Stormtrooper helmet from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Michael Keaton’s Batman costume, a 17-foot Bumblebee from Transformers, and even Predator, Ghostbusters, He-Man and Freddy Kreuger memorabilia.

The list goes on and on. If you’re rolling in dough and want to pick out something to wear Trick-or-Treating early this year, the auction ends tomorrow (Oct. 9) so head over to this link to place your bets. (If you’re looking for a little more affordable memorabilia and reproductions though, we recommend you checkout some of the amazing stuff from Sideshow Collectibles.)

More pictures follow and from the press release, here is what’s on the block:

Read More