Zack Snyder’s “Superman” Film Possibly Based on “Secret Origin”

Zack Snyder’s “Superman” Film Possibly Based on “Secret Origin”

Movie News

By our guest blogger, Joe Oliveto

Zack Snyder, the visually innovative director who brought the popular graphic novels “300” and “Watchmen” to the screen, has recently been tapped by Hollywood to reboot the “Superman” franchise after Bryan Singer’s “Superman Returns” failed to deliver the goods for most fans. In interviews regarding his policy on adaptations, Snyder has often made it a point to explain that while most movie studios tend to tell their own version of a superhero story, he prefers to remain faithful to the original text and create an honest translation of an already existing story arc. He did, however, mention that such was not the plan for his take on “Superman,” but now we may have reason to believe otherwise.

Cinematical has reported that David Goyer, who scripted “Batman Begins” and has been hired to write the new “Superman” film, recently contributed a foreword to a hardcover reissue of the “Superman: Secret Origin” miniseries, in which he explains that the first draft of his script was based on that story. This does not necessarily mean that Snyder’s film will be a direct translation of this miniseries; Christopher Nolan contributed similar material to the hardcover edition of the Batman story “The Long Halloween,” which served as a basis for “The Dark Knight” in only very minimal ways. It’s possible that Goyer and Snyder have simply selected certain aspects of “Secret Origin” and incorporate them into the script.

However, if the film is even slightly based on this arc, yeah, you guessed it--it’s another origin story.

We understand that it’s important to show an audience how a character got his powers and became a superhero, but hasn’t that ground already been covered with “Superman?” Sure, this is technically a reboot of the franchise and so we can’t rely on the original film to be the official word on that story, but how different can the coming-of-age of Clark Kent really get?

Oh yeah, and in “Secret Origin,” Lex Luthor is one of the primary villains. Again.