New "black Superman" film from JJ Abrams and Ta-Nehisi Coates

[Mister Six]

Per The Hollywood Reporter:

Acclaimed essayist and novelist Ta-Nehisi Coates has been hired to pen the script for a feature reboot of Superman that will be produced by J.J. Abrams.

"To be invited into the DC Extended Universe by Warner Bros., DC Films and Bad Robot is an honor," said Coates in a statement to Shadow and Act, a website dedicated to the African diaspora in the arts. "I look forward to meaningfully adding to the legacy of America's most iconic mythic hero."

"There is a new, powerful and moving Superman story yet to be told. We couldn't be more thrilled to be working with the brilliant Mr. Coates to help bring that story to the big screen, and we're beyond thankful to the team at Warner Bros. for the opportunity," said J.J. Abrams in the statement to S&A.

According to sources, the project is being set up as a Black Superman story. This is something that the studio has been trying to wrap its head around for months, if not a year or two. Michael B. Jordan tried to develop a Black Superman project when he first arrived at the studio with his deal in 2019, but that did not go very far at the time, according to sources. It is possible that the studio could return to him to star down the line.

Coates is a superstar author whose books include We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, The Beautiful Struggle, The Water Dancer and Between the World and Me, the latter of which was adapted by HBO. In the comic book space, he has worked on Captain America and Black Panther, with Disney's Bob Iger crediting his influential run on the latter in the decision to greenlight the groundbreaking film starring Chadwick Boseman.

Superman first flew onto the big screen with filmmaker Richard Donner's 1978 film Superman: The Motion Picture, which starred Christopher Reeve. The actor appeared in three subsequent films, with Brandon Routh donning the cape for 2006's Superman Returns and Henry Cavill stepping into the role for 2013's Man of Steel, 2016's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and 2017's Justice League.

This is the first DC feature known to be in development under Abrams' expansive WarnerMedia deal, but he has several DC series in the works for streaming service HBO Max, including Justice League Dark and Constantine.

Personally, I think Clark Kent Superman, Bruce Wayne Batman, Tony Stark Iron Man and Steve Rogers Captain America are the only superheroes that have to be white. Bruce and Tony because they represent absurd white rich male privilege, Clark and Steve because they need to have a naivete about America that seems unlikely in someone who isn't white (especially if they grew up in the Midwest or 1930s Brooklyn).

Obviously other characters who aren't white can take the mantles of Superman, Batman, Iron Man and Captain America - they're just going to be very different to the original guys.

Dwayne McDuffie did Icon, a great story about a black Superman analogue that tackled exactly these kinds of issues (like the first time Icon tries to help the cops they arrest him, because he's a black guy intruding on a crime scene...).

So yeah, this could totally work (and the metaphorical potential for a man torn from his heritage and loathed as an outsider by a rich white man is strong, of course) but this Clark Kent - if they even call him that - cannot be anything like Christopher Reeves's boy scout.

Arsed? Cigs?

[Magnum Valentino]

I've nothing new to say about this. Broadly speaking black people deserve more massive cultural events like this that are made for them (not sure Black Panther really changed anything, now that I think about it - that was YEARS ago, Jesus).

But Superman isn't black. Another character called Superman could be written but he wouldn't be Superman, he'd be another Superman. Mister Six has put it much more eloquently than I could about which characters 'need' to be white, where being white is part of the character.

I'm not really on about that. I just don't like this idea of 'giving' characters to other groups of ethnicities. It absolutely sucks that they don't have as many icons to point to as white folks do, but the solution is not just taking an existing character and heavily modifying them because it's just going to give racists something to eat. And it's patronising.

You know why Black Panther suceeded? Because Black Panther is fucking rad, and he already existed and was rad and black for decades and now he's on the screen. It wasn't a cinematic peace offering or a case of making things right or balancing scales. It was proper use of readily available and wholly appropriate material.

[Mister Six]

Honestly, I think there is potential artistic value in taking a figure as iconic as Superman and changing his race, and seeing how that changes the nature of his character, and what that says about society and the stories we tell. I know McDuffie did that with Icon, but Black Superman will get a lot more eyes on screens than an obscure hero like that.

And we're getting at least three fucking Batman and three Spider-Men (four Spider-Men if you include animation) in our cinemas over the next five years, so throwing out a black Superman is hardly a dramatic change.

Yes, yes, the intellectual bankruptcy of modern Hollywood - but this is a way to detourn that into something useful and subversive.

Although it might well just turn out to be bland, drab shit.

[Goldentony]

He's an alien, he could be basically any race. He'd have to land somewhere he wouldn't get killed as soon as he landed by roaming angry white milkmen, but other than that yeah, sure. Iron Man and Cap can only be white blokes because America would never choose a black war time super soldier icon and Iron Man could only be that wealthy as a white man in America, same as Batman. But the Superman character, I mean some arsehole made him up and you get the image on the side of cans of beans and stuff, they might aswell. At this point every iteration of Superman since Superman 2 in film has been seen as a fucking disaster and the last few have been some chinny reckon CGI faced serial killer in some of the worst rated films of all time in an age when any old cow shit can have legions of twats behind it.

Yeah, why not. They made him a communist, the guy from Los & Clark will be wound up by it, it might be a good film a lot of people enjoy instead of another in a series of shite fucking films all part of constantly trying to fix a shitty mistake

[bgmnts]

Wasn't one of the post Death of Superman Supermen black?

[Replies From View]

It would be fantastic if after all this kurfuffle it was just a black costume they were talking about.


And they're standing alongside a flip chart saying "what?!" pointing at "a black spiderman" for illustrative purposes.

[BritishHobo]

I like the idea of DC saying 'fuck off' to the whole extended universe thing and telling distinct standalone storiws instead, so I'm happy with this. You have the Joker movie, which exists in its own world separate from the Affleck/Leto Gotham, and then this upcoming Matt Reeves Batman which appears again to be set in a separate, standalone world, it's presumably going to treat Bruce Wayne and Gotham differently to both Joker and the DCEU films. So I don't mind them just continuing to turn out individual stories with big, interesting concepts. Plus it's in the tradition of speculative comics like Red Son, going 'what if Superman landed in Russia instead?' As has been pointed out, there's a lot of opportunity and potential in a story looking at how different Superman's rise in America would be, if he were black.

I say this as someone who can't bear Superman, the boring twat.

[Butchers Blind]

WB really don't know what to do with their DC franchise so just chuck any old shit at the wall and see what sticks.

[Bazooka]

What next a ginger Silver Surfer? !!🌊🌊🌊🌊

[jobotic]

Just call them Super Potato and have done with it.

Madness

[mothman]

It sort of feels like they're trying to have their cake and eat it, having a black Superman because, as others have said, it's an interesting experiment in how changing the origins of the character might pan out. But then at the same time it's all part of their desperate multiverse strategy which probably won't be any more successful or lauded than any other iteration of the DCEU has been so far. Though it seems absurd, even obscene, to have consequence-free experimental cinema which costs (possibly even WASTES) hundreds of millions of dollars.

[kngen]

I'll definitely watch it if Michael B Jordan is the lead. He's a pretty magnetic presence and was criminally underused in Black Panther.

[kalowski]

Been done.

[Mister Six]

He's an alien, he could be basically any race. He'd have to land somewhere he wouldn't get killed as soon as he landed by roaming angry white milkmen, but other than that yeah, sure. Iron Man and Cap can only be white blokes because America would never choose a black war time super soldier icon and Iron Man could only be that wealthy as a white man in America, same as Batman. But the Superman character, I mean some arsehole made him up and you get the image on the side of cans of beans and stuff, they might aswell.

My point isn't that you can't have a black guy flying around saving people from falling off buildings and socking giant robots, it's that the essential character of Superman (proper comic book Superman, not Snydercunt) is deep-rooted faith in, and hopefulness about, the potential of America and the inherent goodness of people. And that sits more comfortably on the shoulders of a slightly naive white Kansas farm boy than it does on a black man who grew up anywhere in the US, especially in this post-Obama, post-Trump, BLM era.

The point of the Cap thing isn't about what white America would choose, either (although yes) it's that a poor black Brooklyn kid from the 1930s would have faced so much shiftiness from society that he could never have the kind of wide-eyed patriotism that would make him Captain America.

So you can have a black Superman and a black Captain America and you can call them Clark Kent and Steve Rogers, but they will be very different characters simply out of necessity. Not that I think this is a bad thing. Except for Hollywood becoming further inundated by the same fucking handful of brands and IPs.

[wooders1978]

Wasn't one of the post Death of Superman Supermen black?

Yes, John Henry irons, famously brought to screen by "Shaq"

[wooders1978]

I really don't mind if superman is black, what I really hope they do is explain how he is superman, don't think that's ever been told

[St_Eddie]

There's no reason why a black actor couldn't or indeed shouldn't portray Superman, just providing that his skin colour was never addressed in the story itself.  That would be true empowerment; having a black person in a leading role of a superhero movie and having their skin colour be entirely incidental.

The problem here is that you just know that Superman's skin colour will be anything but incidental.  It's going to be central to the narrative.  The framework of the existing source material will be used to shoehorn in a woke agenda.  It'll be yet another appeal to the woke critics to get onboard and give it two thumbs up, out of political motivations, rather than upon the merits of the movie itself and it will also be a means to discredit the character of anyone who dares be critical of the filmmaking itself as a bigot (see; the Ghostbusters remake in regards to misogyny accusations).  It won't be entertainment, it will be a priggish moralistic lecture masquerading as entertainment.

It's also cynical as all fuck because there's no way that the entire reason why this was greenlit wasn't because some white studio suit saw the box-office and awards that Black Panther made and thought "black superheroes will make us all rich! Let's piggyback that money train with an Oscar Bait movie. Choo choo!".

I just don't like this idea of 'giving' characters to other groups of ethnicities. It absolutely sucks that they don't have as many icons to point to as white folks do, but the solution is not just taking an existing character and heavily modifying them because it's just going to give racists something to eat. And it's patronising.

You know why Black Panther suceeded? Because Black Panther is fucking rad, and he already existed and was rad and black for decades and now he's on the screen. It wasn't a cinematic peace offering or a case of making things right or balancing scales. It was proper use of readily available and wholly appropriate material.

I am very much in agreement.

[Kelvin]

The thing that will make this crap isn't the race of the character, its the fact JJ Abrams is involved.

[Bazooka]

There's no reason why a black actor couldn't or indeed shouldn't portray Superman, just providing that his skin colour was never addressed in the story itself.  That would be true empowerment; having a black person in a leading role of a superhero movie and having their skin colour be entirely incidental.

The problem here is that you just know that Superman's skin colour will be anything but incidental. 

They might try and trick the audience, by subtly saying this with one of those garish "Rap" soundtracks all the kids listen to these days.

[Goldentony]

Been done.

twice!

[Butchers Blind]

Its like when they wanted to make Bond, James Bond a woman.

[madhair60]

I'll get me Coates

[Mister Six]

There's no reason why a black actor couldn't or indeed shouldn't portray Superman, just providing that his skin colour was never addressed in the story itself.  That would be true empowerment; having a black person in a leading role of a superhero movie and having their skin colour be entirely incidental.

You might be surprised by the number of black people who would very vehemently disagree with that. Especially in America, skin colour is far from incidental, and pretending that a black guy flying up to a crime scene would be met with open arms by the police requires more suspension of disbelief than believing a man can fly.

This is from a comic about black Superman analogue Icon, written in 1993 by black author Dwayne McDuffie.





"The black protagonist's skin colour shouldn't matter" is a nice sentiment, but it's a very 2000s white liberal view of race.

The problem here is that you just know that Superman's skin colour will be anything but incidental.  It's going to be central to the narrative.

I'm as cynical as you about the motivations of studio execs and the values of woke critics, but making Superman's skin colour central to the narrative is the only way to do this film in any meaningful way.

[chveik]

in fact i'd say 'woke' liberals (the wrong kind of woke) wouldn't want films that really explore those subjects (see all the contradictions of the girlboss/empowerment tropes)

eta: although lindelof's watchmen was very well received by the media and it was a much more thoughtful approach to racism in the us with a black superhero (but they have more artistic liberties with hbo than the big studios)

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

The concept of an all-powerful superhero who happens to be black landing in early-20th century Jim Crow America has a lot of potential, though, obviously, in actual fact this is most likely going to be shite.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Marvel have some similar characters, also created by black writers: Blue Marvel - a masked Superman analogue, who was asked by JFK to quit heroics, after his racial identity was accidentally revealed to the world. Isiah Bradley - one of several black test subjects for dangerous experimental versions of the supersoldier serum.

Of course that's just part of some woke agenda to... make films movies less fun?

[mjwilson]

The thing that will make this crap isn't the race of the character, its the fact JJ Abrams is involved.

Only as producer though so there's hope.

[mothman]

Until there's a dispute we it's the director on the tone they're going for, and he has him sacked and takes over as a last resort...

[Butchers Blind]

Until there's a dispute we it's the director on the tone they're going for, and he has him sacked and takes over as a last resort...

2 hrs of cinematic lens flare.

[St_Eddie]

You might be surprised by the number of black people who would very vehemently disagree with that. Especially in America, skin colour is far from incidental, and pretending that a black guy flying up to a crime scene would be met with open arms by the police requires more suspension of disbelief than believing a man can fly.

This is from a comic about black Superman analogue Icon, written in 1993 by black author Dwayne McDuffie.





"The black protagonist's skin colour shouldn't matter" is a nice sentiment, but it's a very 2000s white liberal view of race.


I'm as cynical as you about the motivations of studio execs and the values of woke critics, but making Superman's skin colour central to the narrative is the only way to do this film in any meaningful way.

Why not just make an Icon movie then?  Why fundamentally alter a preexisting character and use them to shoehorn in a statement upon racism?