3 posts tagged superman

Neal Adams knows superheroes. He broke new ground with Batman, X-Men and The Avengers, and recently tackled ZvG: Zombies Vs. Gladiators, a project on the Amazon Studios Movie Development Slate (see the trailer here).

Adams talked with us about the best superhero movies he’s seen, plus Batman, Sherlock Holmes and what Superman needs to be super again.

Some highlights from the interview:

What do you think are the biggest pitfalls for studios looking to make a superhero movie?

Underestimating the audience. … They really have to look for good stuff. People are not thrilled necessarily with superheroes — they’re thrilled with characters with characters, just like literature forever. You need good characters. You can relate superhero movies directly to Shakespeare, or stories of the gods.

Of all the superhero movies that you’ve seen, which ones stand out to you as having done the best job?

Well, oddly enough, the last two Batman movies have done some of the best jobs, and Batman is not even a superhero; he is the antithesis of a superhero if you think about it. Nothing super about him …. Superman is probably the greatest comic book superhero, this god-like creature that’s out there. And Batman, created very shortly after that, is the opposite. He’s a superhero who is not a superhero in any way. He’s like an Olympic champion who is very much like Sherlock Holmes. And if you play him that way, then you’ve got a great character. Is he a superhero? Well, he does put on a weird costume. … Sherlock Holmes is a great character. No, he’s not a comic book character. Well, excuse me, I just saw the last two movies. He looks like a comic book character to me. In fact, I would say that of Raiders of the Lost Ark. That guy is a superhero — of a different sort.

What is Superman’s place in the world, in the 21^st century. Some people say he doesn’t work anymore …

Superman is one of the most unrealistic characters. And he’s changed — he used to be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, now he can leap tall planets. I think the future of Superman is to downgrade his powers so that he’s fallible and is someone who can be hurt. … I think you have to go in that direction. There are too many middle-ground characters getting too much traction. … If Superman is not making it people’s minds, but Thor is, something’s wrong and it’s gotta be fixed. And it will.

— Stephanie Reid-Simons