Kevin Costner Cast As Jonathan Kent!

Apologist Puncher wrote:

You know, if the Bros. Warner were SMART, and we know they are not, they would be putting out a character poster or stills touting Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent. You know, to capitalize on the above?

But nope. We'll have more weeks of absolutely DICK instead...

I'm not sure if it was a rerun or not but I don't think it was but in the last couple of weeks Kevin Costner was on Jay Leno's Tonight Show. I was in the other room on the computer so I didn't really watch it but I was listening for MAN OF STEEL comments. I didn't hear a thing! Now I could understand this maybe if this episode had been when Costner was first cast as Jonathan Kent but c'mon! How long has it been now?! And with the film scheduled to come out a little over a year from now, you'd think that Leno would've asked him something. Anything! But I didn't hear a peep! As a matter of fact, the only cast member I've heard Leno ask anything about MOS was Henry Cavill. Even though he's also had Costner & Amy Adams on the show.

So just what is going on here?!

non_amos wrote:I'm not sure if it was a rerun or not but I don't think it was but in the last couple of weeks Kevin Costner was on Jay Leno's Tonight Show. I was in the other room on the computer so I didn't really watch it but I was listening for MAN OF STEEL comments. I didn't hear a thing! Now I could understand this maybe if this episode had been when Costner was first cast as Jonathan Kent but c'mon! How long has it been now?! And with the film scheduled to come out a little over a year from now, you'd think that Leno would've asked him something. Anything! But I didn't hear a peep! As a matter of fact, the only cast member I've heard Leno ask anything about MOS was Henry Cavill. Even though he's also had Costner & Amy Adams on the show.

So just what is going on here?!

Incompetence.

WB has been playing this cock tease act longer than necessary.

I was going to watch the history special, just didnt have the chance to do it. But it pretty good to hear it did well. AP you are right that wb would be wise to play up its success with costner to drum up some press for man of steel.

Stockslivevan wrote:WB has been playing this cock tease act longer than necessary.

And yet they act "surprised" when their movies flop. Imagine that....

Besides SR and GL, what other flicks flopped?

I think outside of the DC properties, WB has been an excellent studio allowing filmmakers to do their own thing, for better or worse. FOX has surprised me lately. For a long period they churned out nothing but mediocrity, the nadir being 2009 with WOLVERINE and that... abomination that I can't even name. But recently, roughly right after AVATAR (which I didn't think was THAT great), they've been churning out some better movies like RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Then there's this years PROMETHEUS, I'd say they're just starting to redeem themselves. It's a nice change. Was new management brought in or did AVATAR's success actually make them feel confident in letting filmmakers do their own thing without interrupting them? I remember leaked reports they really fucked with the filmmakers over WOLVERINE, but unless I've been in the dark it seems they let FIRST CLASS go on without incident.

Well for regular book to movie/original stuff I have liked a lot of wb films. To many to say offhand. But on dc side of things you got in the past few yrs sr, gl, jonah hex all bombed.

Fuck. I forgot about JONAH HEX. What a fucking dog of a film.

Stockslivevan wrote:Besides SR and GL, what other flicks flopped?

I think outside of the DC properties,

This is what I was talking about though?

And let's try 'Superman IV'. 'Batman & Robin'. 'Steel'. 'Catwoman'. 'Constantine'. In fact, I'd say their track-record when it comes to comic book films is pretty ABYSMAL.

WB has been an excellent studio allowing filmmakers to do their own thing, for better or worse. FOX has surprised me lately. For a long period they churned out nothing but mediocrity, the nadir being 2009 with WOLVERINE and that... abomination that I can't even name. But recently, roughly right after AVATAR (which I didn't think was THAT great), they've been churning out some better movies like RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Then there's this years PROMETHEUS, I'd say they're just starting to redeem themselves. It's a nice change. Was new management brought in or did AVATAR's success actually make them feel confident in letting filmmakers do their own thing without interrupting them? I remember leaked reports they really fucked with the filmmakers over WOLVERINE, but unless I've been in the dark it seems they let FIRST CLASS go on without incident.

You mean movies that the Bros. Warner actually respect?

Shocking.

Ah, I'm thinking more recent roughly since the beginning of the golden age of comic book movies starting with X-MEN.

Also, must correct you regrading THE QUEST FOR PEACE. For a very long period WB only had distribution rights to the Superman film property, no creative control (similar to how FOX distributed the Star Wars flicks but all the movies were in complete control by Lucas and co). The first three Christopher Reeve films were largely under the control of the Salkinds' production company. After SUPERMAN III and SUPERGIRL turned in disappointing results at the box office the Salkinds decided to sell the film rights of Superman to another production company. Unfortunately they went to the worst possible studio at the time: Cannon Group, responsible for low budget cheesy action flicks, most of them starring Chuck Norris. They were also gonna do SPIDER-MAN but once they got their hands on SUPERMAN the project was scrapped.

It wasn't until 1993 that WB bought back the rights to do Superman productions. After they won them back they immediately began work on LOIS & CLARK. This is why SUPERBOY got cancelled in 1992 as that production was out of WB's hands and once they won back the rights they immediately cancelled it in order to start their own project.

Okay, pull out QFP and plug in 'Supergirl'.

That wasn't WB either (heck they actually refused to distribute that one).

To be fair, I'll concede that DC properties on film, WB and independent studios included, have for the most part been fucked.

Stockslivevan wrote:That wasn't WB either (heck they actually refused to distribute that one).

To be fair, I'll concede that DC properties on film, WB and independent studios included, have for the most part been fucked.

Actually, it was:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_DC_Comics

1984 Supergirl Warner Bros.

Oh, and:

1987 Superman IV: The Quest for Peace Golan-Globus/Cannon Films/Warner Bros.

Interesting....

I liked SUPERGIRL 'OK' but even I can recognize it's no blockbuster. I did like the casting of Helen Slater which obviously even led to her casting on SMALLVILLE as Lara I believe? Nevertheless, the film itself, like SUPERMAN 3, could've been better. Nevertheless, like S3, I can still enjoy it for what it is. I know we've discussed on here before about our like for S3 in spite of everything that's wrong with it. I compared it to a 'guilty pleasure' & I suppose I could place Supergirl in that same category, only less so. But S4 really suffered due to its' low budget & everything else I guess.

To be fair to CANNON though, back then in the mid-80's they did come out with a film that, although I haven't ever researched it online, I do know that it got some 'critical acclaim'. It was called RUNAWAY TRAIN & if I remember correctly, I believe it even got '2 thumbs up' from Siskel & Ebert. I actually watched the film back then on VHS & enjoyed it but I don't know what went wrong with them in regard to S4 except for things like budget, hence crappy FX.

Of interest though in regard to Supergirl though is I seem to also recall that they had wanted Christopher Reeve to do a cameo in the film which didn't work out. Anyone actually know why? So instead we see a poster of Superman with some newscast or whatever stating that Superman is 'off in another galaxy'. And you mean he went without a spaceship? Even Singerman couldn't do that!

Apologist Puncher wrote:

Stockslivevan wrote:That wasn't WB either (heck they actually refused to distribute that one).

To be fair, I'll concede that DC properties on film, WB and independent studios included, have for the most part been fucked.

Actually, it was:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_DC_Comics

1984 Supergirl Warner Bros.

Oh, and:

1987 Superman IV: The Quest for Peace Golan-Globus/Cannon Films/Warner Bros.

Interesting....

If you read my previous post you'd see that I already acknowledged that they had distribution rights which is very different from what they're currently doing today. Like I said, during those years WB was to Superman what FOX and Paramount were to Star Wars and Indiana Jones. They had no control over that property. It's no different than how the James Bond films are controlled by EON productions but the films are distributed by Sony.

Saying QUEST FOR PEACE is a flop by WB is like saying Ang Lee's HULK was a flop by Marvel Studios.

Stockslivevan wrote:
If you read my previous post you'd see that I already acknowledged that they had distribution rights which is very different from what they're currently doing today. Like I said, during those years WB was to Superman what FOX and Paramount were to Star Wars and Indiana Jones. They had no control over that property. It's no different than how the James Bond films are controlled by EON productions but the films are distributed by Sony.

Saying QUEST FOR PEACE is a flop by WB is like saying Ang Lee's HULK was a flop by Marvel Studios.

But not for 'Supergirl'. They were responsible for that one.

Nope. Again, that was the Salkinds. In the 1970s they bought the rights to all Superman related properties including spin-offs like Supergirl (even Superpup!), which they decided to make after SUPERMAN III was a critical and financial disappointment. All WB would be involved with was distributing the films. However, it was actually a very different matter for SUPERGIRL. Originally WB was to distribute the film for the Summer of 1984. However, they were very dissatisfied over how the Salkinds had been handling the films and saw how the films had been making less and less money, so they chose the option of not distributing the film and shelved it. SUPERGIRL would not get a theatrical release in the US until the Salkinds made a deal with TriStar for a November 1984 date, which ended up flopping.

After that fiasco, the Salkinds realized it was not worth making Superman related films anymore and so they decided sell the film rights. Instead of giving them back to WB, they decided to give it to independent studio Cannon Group (I believe that was the Salkinds way of telling WB "fuck you"). However, the Salkinds kept the rights to Superboy thus they created the TV series that lasted four seasons and got cancelled after WB won a case in gaining all the Superman rights back.

Stockslivevan wrote:Saying QUEST FOR PEACE is a flop by WB is like saying Ang Lee's HULK was a flop by Marvel Studios.

Not to argue the point but I sometimes wonder how accurate it is to call S4QFP a flop. Did it make a profit at the box office? Nope. But it was only out for a few weeks before being pulled but it still made $15 million of it's $17 million budget back. And that's in the States/Canada, a record I'd match against Singerman (which needed a partial 3D IMAX release and, what, five months in theaters just to hit $200 million in the US) any day of the week. If S4 is a flop, Singerman surely was a bomb.

Then again, it's not like too many people around here are going to argue over that.

To your point about creative input though, I've never been clear on just how much say WB had. The structure of the original negative pickup deal was that the Salkinds would deliver a completed movie to WB for distribution. However, two things happened. (A) The STM production needed cash after a certain point and (B) WB started seeing some of Reeve's dailies. Those two factors, particularly A, led to WB having a bit more than just a distributive interest in STM. And this comes from Ilya Salkind in his STM commentary. He doesn't elaborate on just what kind of executive and creative input WB came to possess but it seems they had at least a little of both and at least for STM. Either way though, it was ultimately the Salkinds asses on the line if the movie(s) didn't turn a profit.

Oh, one another thing. As this forum's resident S3 apologist (I bow to no one in that respect), it was neither a financial nor critical failure. It got mixed reviews from critics but turned a decent enough profit ($39,000,000 vs. $59,950,623 according to Wikipedia) despite considerable box office competition (Return of the Jedi, for one).

I think S3 suffers in comparison to STM and S2 in that those movies really did comprise kind of an epic. S3 may work as an action/adventure story but we all know what came before and the comparisons are inevitable. It doesn't help that S3 doesn't feel like an organic continuation of the story as we left it in S2. Then again, it clearly wasn't meant to.

On its own merits, I think S3 is a perfectly entertaining movie. Perfectly entertaining; NOT PERFECT.

This notions that critics and fans were universally repulsed by the movie and that S3 tanked it at the box office are just myth and revisionism perpetuated somewhat by Donner himself... which, considering his biases in the matter, could be read as sour grapes.

Finally, I'd argue that S3 is pretty well in line with what Superman comics of the time were like. A guest star would pop up in the story, the plot would revolve mostly around him/her and then the guest star vanish into the good night, never (or unlikely) to be seen or heard from again. Were those comics as slap-sticky as S3? At times, yes. People don't like hearing that but it's the truth. Sometimes they took a tone similar to what Donner did. But sometimes? Yeah, they'd be along the lines of what you saw in S3.

Ya the dc stuff beside batman has been utter crap. I believe the other other stuff that has done good is movies based off graphic novels that where produced by dc or one of the subsidaries companies like vertigo. Like road to pedritation and there was a few others. But I don't recall if they where all wb films.

thecolorsblend wrote:

Stockslivevan wrote:Saying QUEST FOR PEACE is a flop by WB is like saying Ang Lee's HULK was a flop by Marvel Studios.

Not to argue the point but I sometimes wonder how accurate it is to call S4QFP a flop. Did it make a profit at the box office? Nope. But it was only out for a few weeks before being pulled but it still made $15 million of it's $17 million budget back. And that's in the States/Canada, a record I'd match against Singerman (which needed a partial 3D IMAX release and, what, five months in theaters just to hit $200 million in the US) any day of the week. If S4 is a flop, Singerman surely was a bomb.

Then again, it's not like too many people around here are going to argue over that.

To your point about creative input though, I've never been clear on just how much say WB had. The structure of the original negative pickup deal was that the Salkinds would deliver a completed movie to WB for distribution. However, two things happened. (A) The STM production needed cash after a certain point and (B) WB started seeing some of Reeve's dailies. Those two factors, particularly A, led to WB having a bit more than just a distributive interest in STM. And this comes from Ilya Salkind in his STM commentary. He doesn't elaborate on just what kind of executive and creative input WB came to possess but it seems they had at least a little of both and at least for STM. Either way though, it was ultimately the Salkinds asses on the line if the movie(s) didn't turn a profit.

You're right. STM was going over budget thus the Salkinds needed money. Because the were getting extra money from WB, that meant WB would become more involved in production, since it is their money in the line they have the right to have some kind of say on how the Salkinds handle it. But like you said, he never elaborated on the extent of control they had beyond demanding to see dailies. You can see that situations like this one were the reasons WB decided to regain all the rights back so that they could avoid troubles like this. But that's WBs fault for trusting the Salkinds (who already gained a bad reputation after THE THREE MUSKETEERS) with their property.

thecolorsblend wrote:Oh, one another thing. As this forum's resident S3 apologist (I bow to no one in that respect), it was neither a financial nor critical failure. It got mixed reviews from critics but turned a decent enough profit ($39,000,000 vs. $59,950,623 according to Wikipedia) despite considerable box office competition (Return of the Jedi, for one).

I think S3 suffers in comparison to STM and S2 in that those movies really did comprise kind of an epic. S3 may work as an action/adventure story but we all know what came before and the comparisons are inevitable. It doesn't help that S3 doesn't feel like an organic continuation of the story as we left it in S2. Then again, it clearly wasn't meant to.

On its own merits, I think S3 is a perfectly entertaining movie. Perfectly entertaining; NOT PERFECT.

This notions that critics and fans were universally repulsed by the movie and that S3 tanked it at the box office are just myth and revisionism perpetuated somewhat by Donner himself... which, considering his biases in the matter, could be read as sour grapes.

Finally, I'd argue that S3 is pretty well in line with what Superman comics of the time were like. A guest star would pop up in the story, the plot would revolve mostly around him/her and then the guest star vanish into the good night, never (or unlikely) to be seen or heard from again. Were those comics as slap-sticky as S3? At times, yes. People don't like hearing that but it's the truth. Sometimes they took a tone similar to what Donner did. But sometimes? Yeah, they'd be along the lines of what you saw in S3.

Yeah, it wasn't a financial failure for sure. That's why I called it a financial disappointment because the numbers were much lower than the previous films.

I think the premise of S3 is fine, it's just in execution I'm not crazy about. Slapstick humor is fine, there was plenty of that with Lex and Otis. Heck, the opening titles would make a nice short film, but as part of a Superman film I question the whole point of it beyond showing that everyone wants to bang that blonde. It just feels out of place. Then there's the Newmans' attempt at humor "I'm glad I'm a writer!" that usually fell flat, which is especially unfortunate because a funny guy like Richard Pryor had to work with it.

On Richard Pryor. In a perfect world his inclusion would have been ballsy and original. But the truth is the Salkinds only put him in because they wanted a big name like they did with Brando and Hackman. However, by 3 you'd think the producers realized that the draw in these films became Christopher Reeve. By 2 he became a much bigger attraction than Hackman. It's just odd that they'd go for a cast gimmick as if they had no confidence in Reeve carrying his own.

To me, SUPERMAN III is a lot like SPIDER-MAN 3 in that they have a lot of good ideas going on, the special effects and action are well done for their time but the stories are not given the best possible treatment. Also there are several stories going on in each film that are too tonally different from eachother so it feels like a jumble without focus. It's a flawed film but I wouldn't call BAD like QUEST FOR PEACE. As far as third installments go, it's no where near how THE LAST STAND peeved me. III's advantage was that there was no story to continue after II, so it could have gone anywhere without ruining the first two.

My idea of how III should have been done: Gus Gorman is a guy who's down on his luck. Suddenly a meteorite lands nearby and he goes after it. However, it's not actually a meteorite but a device. As he examines it there's a flash and the console explodes. The flash was actually the machine uploading information into his head, this is what makes him a computer genius. Throughout the film he's not brainwashed but the info dump was put in subconsciously so that it seems like he's the one coming up with innovations throughout the film, building up to him creating the super computer that we see at the end. It's actually all Brainiac's doing and that with the help of Gorman creating the supercomputer he's able to connect to the entire world and suit it for his arrival. It's up to Superman to stop this computer from constricting the world. Much like the first film with the brief scene of Zod, SUPERMAN III would set up Brainiac as the villain for SUPERMAN IV.

I'm not sure how the subplot of Superman vs Clark Kent would fit in. I actually like it a lot and was one of the strong points of III, purely because Reeve really made you think that there were two different people fighting eachother. Maybe Gorman comes up with the synthetic kryptonite via the info dump he was given instead of him glancing at his cigarette pack.

Stockslivevan wrote:You're right. STM was going over budget thus the Salkinds needed money. Because the were getting extra money from WB, that meant WB would become more involved in production, since it is their money in the line they have the right to have some kind of say on how the Salkinds handle it. But like you said, he never elaborated on the extent of control they had beyond demanding to see dailies. You can see that situations like this one were the reasons WB decided to regain all the rights back so that they could avoid troubles like this. But that's WBs fault for trusting the Salkinds (who already gained a bad reputation after THE THREE MUSKETEERS) with their property.

I disagree. The Salkinds waltzing in with a negative pickup deal let WB reap the benefits of merchandising and other aspects of the gravy train without the financial risk of making the movie themselves. I'm sure they looked at it as a good deal. And it was.

Stockslivevan wrote:Yeah, it wasn't a financial failure for sure. That's why I called it a financial disappointment because the numbers were much lower than the previous films.

Fair enough. But I hear "box office bomb" tossed about entirely too casually when it comes to S3. A lot of people out there are under the impression it lost serious money; it didn't. Not even close.

Stockslivevan wrote:On Richard Pryor. In a perfect world his inclusion would have been ballsy and original. But the truth is the Salkinds only put him in because they wanted a big name like they did with Brando and Hackman.

On the contrary, I think it was a smart business move. Not a brilliant one but smart. Ilya Salkind's original pitch for S3 revolved around Supergirl, Brainiac and Mxy. Some elements were similar to the final film, particularly Superman going nasty. The main difference is that in S3, Superman was effectively poisoned. In Salkind's version, his transformation would've happened at the push of a button by Brainiac to make it clearer to the kiddies that Superman was being controlled rather than lashing out. As a kid, I think I grokked that Superman had somehow been affected by the kryptonite. So I guess it was clear enough to kids what the deal was. But I do admire the sentiment behind his preference for the "push the button" approach.

But anyway. Doesn't it say something about the Salkinds that when they realized they could recruit Pryor, they jettisoned Ilya's original concept rather than casting Pryor as Mxy or Brainiac? The path of least resistance would've been to shoehorn Pryor into the existing concept rather than invent a better vehicle for their revised cast.

Given the options on the table, isn't the final version the smarter play?

Stockslivevan wrote:However, by 3 you'd think the producers realized that the draw in these films became Christopher Reeve. By 2 he became a much bigger attraction than Hackman. It's just odd that they'd go for a cast gimmick as if they had no confidence in Reeve carrying his own.

Yep. By around 1982, '83, Reeve was a STAR. Again, revisionism has it that Superman was basically Reeve's only real opportunity. Not so. If he'd played the game the same way Harrison Ford had, I truly believe his career would've been at least as big as Ford's. Probably bigger. Unfortunately, I think Reeve didn't have Ford's patience. He wanted instant "serious, dramatic" roles without having to do the grunt work movies to get there. He turned down leading roles in movies that went on to become major hits.

Stockslivevan wrote:To me, SUPERMAN III is a lot like SPIDER-MAN 3 in that they have a lot of good ideas going on, the special effects and action are well done for their time but the stories are not given the best possible treatment. Also there are several stories going on in each film that are too tonally different from eachother so it feels like a jumble without focus.

There's a limit to how much I'm willing to pick on Spider-Man 3. First, you've got a lot of fiddle-fuckery coming down the pipeline from the studio. They mandated Venom. Well and good but as far as Raimi knew, Spider-Man 3 might've been his final movie (and look, he was right) so he naturally wanted to finish off his trilogy and so was forced to find a way to incorporate Venom into the thing as best he could.

Even so, I don't think Raimi understands Venom and, if you were to get him drunk enough, I think he'd probably cop to it. Nevertheless, the Sony machine had spoken. Venom is in it.

Apart from Venom, I think the film plays pretty well. The biggest issue in my mind is the repetitive climactic structure. Once again Mary Jane is in trouble at the hands of the villain so once again Spider-Man has to save her, get his ass kicked for a while and then save the day.

The problem is that the structure HAD to be that way in Spider-Man 3. I don't think it necessarily had to have been in Spider-Man 2. If Spider-Man 2 had a climax that didn't involve MJ being put directly in harm's way as bait, Spidey 1 and 3 would've had a bookend structure going which would've nicely complemented all the shit about the first Spidey that the third one dug back up (for better or worse). It would've strengthened what was already there. In fact, some people have credibly argued that Gwen Stacy is the one who was originally going to be the damsel in distress in Spidey 3 and it was a last minute change that put MJ in her place. Not sure how much I believe it but it's interesting speculation.

Either way though, it's Monday morning quarterbacking at its worst. Raimi didn't have the specifics of his trilogy nailed down in advance. And there's an argument that such tight planning would not have allowed him any room for improv... or to deal with inane studio notes. I think he did the best he could with the resources available to him at the time.

As to how this all relates to Superman III, they're both the peak of their respective franchises as far as production value goes. No expense was spared for either. They're both big and polished. They may not represent the artistic high points of their predecessors but both are better than they're given credit for.

Yeah. I think Reeve bit more than he could chew in his day going for heavy drama films. Heck he didn't want to do SUPERMAN IV until Cannon said he could do his own pet project STREET SMART (which in a way was a good thing because that's when Hollywood discovered Morgan Freeman). He's not a very good dramatic actor really and sometimes that creeped into the Superman flicks (that bit with him confronting Jor-El in Donner's cut is pretty iffy). So yeah, he should have settled into some lighter fare to help him grow as a leading actor, but such is life.

Again, I think Pryor could have worked in a perfect world, it's just that the Newman script didn't really help matters. As much as everyone thought Donner leaving was a major loss, I think another crucial loss was Tom Mankiewicz. Had he been around to write for Pryor it might have turned out to be incredible. He was very smart when it came to writing for certain actors because he knew that you had to play to their strengths otherwise you might end up disappointed. He helped add a lot of wit to those scripts the Newmans sorely lacked. But he was among those loyal to Donner so it just wasn't meant to be. Of all the four films, I think III was the one that needed Mankiewicz the most.