Three years after it launched DC Comics’ cinematic universe with a $668 million global box office gross, the Zack Snyder-directed Superman reboot Man of Steel is finally getting a standalone sequel, as an unnamed source familiar with the developing film at Warner Bros. told Umberto Gonzalez at The Wrap.

Plans for a sequel were changed not long after Man of Steel was released in the summer of 2013 when Snyder announced at that year’s San Diego Comic-Con that the follow-up would pit Superman against Batman. The end result, released this past March, was Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which also featured the first appearance of Wonder Woman, Aquaman, the Flash, and Cyborg.

Last summer, it was reported that George Miller, hot off the critical and commercial success of Mad Max: Fury Road, was in the running to direct the Man of Steel sequel, but mere days later talks were cancelled and the project was put on hold…. permanently, it seemed at the time.

Snyder is currently busy filming 2017’s Justice League and will probably want to take a break from superhero tentpole movies for a while after that one wraps. Although Miller has a fifth Mad Max film, subtitled The Wasteland, in the early stages of development, there hasn’t been any movement on that project for some time, leaving the door open for him to take the director’s chair on the Man of Steel sequel. It might be a little too early to speculate, but the idea of a Superman movie from the man who brought the world The Road Warrior is one that makes our geeky hearts flutter.

Superman has surprisingly become a top priority at DC’s film division after being sidelined in favor of reintroducing Batman and establishing the other members of the cinematic Justice League. After the first Man of Steel and Batman v Superman gave us a Last Son of Krypton nothing all like the character beloved around the world for nearly eight decades, the studio wants to perform a major course correction for Superman that could be set into motion by his inevitable resurrection in the upcoming Justice League.

He’s already battled onscreen with General Zod, Lex Luthor, and Doomsday, so which of his iconic foes could the Big Blue Boy Scout take on next? My guess is that maybe the sequel will finally get around to introducing Brainiac since that has always been one of Superman’s most powerful adversaries in comic and animated form. Tim Burton’s legendarily unmade Superman Lives would have pitted Nicolas Cage’s Man of Tomorrow against Brainiac. Check out Jon Schnepp’s outstanding documentary The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened? to see how that could have played out had it become a reality.

The untitled Man of Steel sequel doesn’t yet have a release date, but Warner Bros. has set aside October 5, 2018 and November 1, 2019 for two DC Comics features that haven’t been determined. If no problems arise during the development phase and all the pieces crucial to making a great film lock into place, Superman could return in his next solo silver screen adventure on one of those dates.

[Source: The Wrap]