How would you portray Superman in film?

[Everlong]

One of the most common criticisms of Superman is that he is an unrelatable, unrealistic character. They tried to add some grit to him in Man of Steel, but it just never really played off well. By all accounts, the character depiction doesn't really get much better in Batman vs. Superman.

However, Superman is still a major IP for DC Comics, and he's still going to be a cornerstone of the Justice League franchise.

If you were in charge of creating the next Superman movie, how would you want the character to be portrayed in a way that is interesting and relatable to the general public?

[Everlong]

I'm just going to assume nobody really knows. It's a tough question, I know

[The Legend]

Well, here's the issue, I don't really find Superman to be a character you add compelling nature to by adding grit so to speak. He's to clean cut by nature for that. The other issue would be, that there's too many Superman movies. This would be a general criticism to Hollywood, any time anyone would ask me, how would you freshen this character? I would say by coming up with an original character.

However, if you were to force me, maybe something where you come up with some moral or personal dilemmas for Superman. A movie where an unintended consequence of trying to do good caused something bad to happen, giving him a crisis of confidence is option 1. The other option would be to make a movie more about Clark Kent than Superman. You could come up with a story in which Clark tries to assimilate more into regular society, but his superpowers just keep getting in the way.

[DBSoT]

You are right about him not being relatable, but to be fair there that is kind of the nature of a lot of superheros. It may be best to just not try to make him relatable at all. Make him more of a guy that is constantly a stranger on Earth. He has huge powers and sees the need to fight the wrong in the world, but he really has no place outside of his parents and Lois. Have people constantly pulling him to fight for them, but have him struggle to understand why. It even works with a lot of Superman villains because you don't see Superman taking on petty thugs like Batman. Superman takes on massive out of this world characters (Doomsday, Zod, Brainiac, Bizarro). Make it were he fights those villains because he sees the need to protect the larger world that he lives, bug he doesn't understand the need to protect the citizens 1 by 1. It would also make the Batman conflict work because Batman could resent him for failing to protect the average citizen. It also adds to the thought that Batman finds him dangerous. It would have helped BvS if DC would have made the solo Batman movie first. They could have went with "The Killing Joke" storyline which tell the origin of the Joker and explains that every person is "only one bad day" away from madness. Batman could have learned this lesson and applied it to Superman. Batman would be nervous that Superman is one bad day away from destroying the world.

[JDD]

Read the Max Landis Superman comic Superman: American Alien. Thats how I would portray Clark Kent in films. Its a seven issue run, issue five came out last month. Its the most human and relatable version of the character ive ever seen.

[Hanley!]

I think John is dead right in that you can't make Superman more interesting by making him more gritty. That's not how the character works. Superman will never be "cool". He's not supposed to be Batman or Wolverine. Trying to convert him into a badass character would be like booking Sami Zayn like Stone Cold Steve Austin. You're not playing to his strengths.

Superman needs to be likeable, not cool. He should be earnest and wear his emotions on his sleeve. The closest comparison I can come up with in superhero films at the moment is how Marvel are handling Captain America. He might not be cool, or even hugely relatable, but he is sympathetic and easy to get behind.

In terms of story/plot, the important thing is coming up with a good central conflict for the film. You can't rely on introducing a bad guy who's EVEN MORE POWERFUL than Superman, or making everyone wear Kryptonite armour or some shit. No matter what you do, fans aren't going to worry about Superman. He seems unkillable, he has so much power that there seems to be no scenario he couldn't get out of unscathed. And once the villains reach a certain level of power, the minds of the viewers can't comprehend it anyway so it becomes a terrible narrative tool.

So the conflict can never be that Superman must face someone tougher than him, or Superman must face off against his greatest weakness. It needs to be more personal than that. A good conflict for Superman is not being able to save everyone, being forced to make tough choices, acting in a way that alienates him from those around him because he genuinely believes it's the right thing to do.

A good Superman story focuses on his humanity too. He should develop strong relationships with other characters, and those relationships should be compelling and relevant to the story you're trying to tell, rather than just tacked on for fan service. Superman struggling to assimilate into human life despite his good intentions and his upbringing is another potential story to focus on for Superman.

And where action scenes are concerned, in my mind it always makes more sense to have Superman catching an airplane out of the sky, rather than punching a guy in the face.

[Westcoastvibes]

I cant stop referencing the movie Hancock when thinking about this. Its a similar character but more human, more relatable. I would go the route of that, have a superman that maybe doesn't have the high morals and kindness. Make him not wanted or cheered by civilization, one that is torn between wanting to help but sick of negativity and humanity's lack of care.

[UTK]

If you've ever seen the movie Watchmen, I like to think of Dr. Manhattan as the more interesting version of Superman (which I suppose was the point, since Watchmen is supposed to be a satire of comic book tropes.) He's so powerful and so beyond humanity, that he eventually sort of stops caring about humans. Their lives seem so fragile and pointless in the grand scheme of the universe that he slowly loses the motivation to help them.



Ironically, Watchmen is directed by Zack Snyder, who just butchered Batman vs Superman. But since Watchmen was originally a graphic novel, I can credit the writers of it for the unique storyline.

I always liked the idea of Lex Luthor fighting Superman by convincing him that his efforts to help humanity are futile, as opposed to trying to get him to go near a green rock or something.