Brandon Routh, star of the much-maligned Superman Returns who managed a pitch-perfect Christopher Reeve impersonation as Clark Kent, likely won't be back for the next Superman movie, according to Variety's Anne Thompson. She also says that the next Supes movie will likely not include vaunted director Bryan Singer, who is the hero of the X-Men franchise (and Brett Ratner is the archenemy) and apparently the villain of the Superman saga for choosing to make a direct sequel to Richard Donner's Superman II as opposed to a "fresh new take,"
So it's possible the next Superman film will completely ignore everything that happened in Superman Returns, since they're likely going to use whoever the cast for the upcoming Justice League movie, and spin it off from there. Now while I think people were way too harsh on Singer's movie, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Not only can they ignore the complications of Superman as deadbeat dad, but they have the chance to finally turn Lex Luthor into the truly cunning Machiavellian genius he should be. Gene Hackman and Kevin Spacey both could have pulled it off if the script actually asked it of them, but alas, both roles left us with a bumbling comic relief as opposed to a true, credible threat to the Man of Steel. This was my biggest problem with the Superman films to date, and while Justice League's apparent casting of hordes of young unknowns as the major players could either spell greatness or catastrophe, I've got my fingers crossed that they'll at least address this particular issue.
