The views have been counted and the winner of the Batman v Superman Honest Trailers-off is… Superman… really? That means the gang at Screen Junkies were forced, by us, to give the HT treatment to Bryan Singer’s 2006’s homage/sequel/remake/reboot… “hobootquel” of Richard Donner’s 1978 classic, Superman Returns. This marks the 4th time the Screen Junkies team have dabbled in the Superman franchise, with Donner’s Quest for Peace and Man of Steel already having one.

Check out the Honest Trailer below.

It’s good to see Warner Bros. and DC Comics finally starting to learn from their past mistakes in bringing their classic comic book superhero stable to the big screen. Outside of Christopher Nolan‘s Batman trilogy their future looked mighty bleak in the wake of the less-than-enthusiastic receptions given to Superman Returns and Green Lantern. Last week the long-in-the-works Man of Steel brought Superman back to the big screen to the tune of a record-smashing $128 million opening weekend despite mixed reviews. Warners/DC had been hedging their bets of Man of Steel being successful enough to begin constructing a long-running cinematic universe of multiple superhero movie franchises to rival Marvel Studios, with the end result being an all-star Justice League team-up film.

However, the Justice League movie has proved to be of even greater difficulty to get off the ground than the film adventure of any single DCU character. Gangster Squad scribe Will Beall took a crack at the project last year but his efforts were eventually discarded by the studio in favor of a fresh start overseen by David S. Goyer, the writer and hardcore comic fan who helped make Blade the first lucrative feature franchise out of a Marvel character and also co-wrote Batman Begins and wrote Man of Steel, as part of a three-picture deal that also includes a naturally inevitable Man of Steel sequel.

People tend to forget, or have the memory surgically removed from their brains, that fifteen years ago we saw Superman battle Brainiac, Lex Luthor, and Doomsday on the big screen without the benefit of his trademark costume or even the ability to fly. The possibility that a universally adored icon of comic book heroics could have gone such a revisionist undertaking once is enough to send the most ardent Superman fans into therapy.

Had all the pieces fallen into place in the summer of 1998 Warner Bros. would have brought to the world the Last Son of Krypton’s biggest – and potentially strangest – movie adventure to date: Superman Lives, directed by Tim Burton from a screenplay credited to several different writers including independent filmmaker/geek icon/current critical pariah Kevin Smith and Wesley Strick (Martin Scorsese’s remake of Cape Fear), with no less than Nicolas Cage in the title role of the greatest hero of the DC Universe. Yes friends, this movie almost happened, except it didn’t happen.

A few years ago I read an interview with filmmaker Terry Gilliam where he was talking about a sequence he had to cut from his 2005 movie The Brothers Grimm that was so costly to shoot and with the amount of money that had to be spent on CGI the scene would be, in Gilliam’s words, “the most expensive deleted scene ever made.” It’s true that many films have to go through extensive reshooting and reediting before they’re released to theaters, often the result of unenthusiastic audience responses at test screenings or the will of studio executives far from happy with the final product. But in the case of Superman Returns — Bryan Singer‘s much hyped and ultimately disappointing 2006 attempt to relaunch the film franchise starring the iconic DC Comics superhero that first began with 1978’s classic Superman: The Movie — the decision to remove a costly scene integral to the narrative was the decision of the director alone. The long talked about “Return to Krypton” scene is now available for viewing online after recently being released as an extra in the Superman: The Motion Picture Anthology Blu-ray box set [you can read review of the set here].

You can watch the over 5-minute deleted opening sequence here below.

Superman: The Motion Picture Anthology
Blu-ray
Starring Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, Brandon Routh, Kevin Spacey
Release date: June 7, 2011

With all the superhero movies that have been made over the last few decades, the first Superman movie is still by far my favorite. Based on the DC Comics character, the 1978 film was the superhero film for all ages, not just children, and set the bar for all comic book movies to follow.

Now, all four original films, which starred Christopher Reeve as the Man of Steel, along with the 2006 sequel/reboot hybrid Superman Returns starring Brandon Routh, are now collected in high definition in Warner Home Video’s new offering Superman: The Motion Picture Anthology Blu-ray Edition.

Superman: The Motion Picture Anthology (1978-2006) is coming to Blu-ray on June 7, 2011 in the United States, and contains all the Superman theatrical releases.

This 8-disc deluxe set includes all five Superman films to date, along with expanded/director cuts for the first two films, as well as over 20 hours of bonus features, like movie deleted scenes; commentaries; Look, Up in the Sky! The Amazing Story of Superman; documentaries and TV specials; the 1940s cartoons; the George Reeves Superman material; and much more.

Films included are:

– Superman The Movie
– Superman The Movie: Expanded Edition
– Superman II Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut
– Superman III
– Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
– Superman Returns

Some major reports are coming straight out of Deadline Hollywood this week, and while confirmation of Tom Cruise’s involvement in Mission: Impossible IV may be huge, this particular story may just top it.

A source close to or within Warner Brothers has revealed that the studio has reached out to Christopher Nolan, the director of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, to act as a sort of mentor or “Godfather” on the eventual second attempt to modernize Superman. A few years back, X-Men and X2 director Bryan Singer brought us Superman Returns with Brandon Routh as the iconic hero, but the movie never quite lived up to the hype…both financially and critically. When Nolan took over the Batman franchise for a major reboot (back when studios waited a couple decades first), he brought the characters out of their comic book existence and placed them in our own dark and gritty world.

It’s being reported that Peter Iliff has been brought in to pen a brand new feature film in which the world famous American Gladiators become superheroes. The movie is said to be based on the TV show we’re all familiar with that began in 1988 and recently came back for a short two-season run. No word on if Gladiators like Nitro, Malibu, Zap, Lace, or some of the newer ones like Crush, Wolf, or Titan will actually star in the film, or if they will cast new faces. It will be produced by Scott Mednick.

Iliff isn’t exactly a household name, but the man has brought us some decent titles over the years. He first wrote the popular action movie Point Break (and a possible future sequel called Point Break Indo), which starred a young Keanu Reeves and the late Patrick Swayze. He then went on to write Harrison Ford’s Patriot Games, the high school football flick Varsity Blues, and Under Suspicion with Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman. Mednick also has an impressive resume of producing jobs that includes Superman Returns, Beerfest, 300, We Are Marshall, and Where the Wild Things Are.

The Gold Box spotlight deal of the day today over at Amazon is Superman Ultimate Collector’s Edition for only $45.99 (down 54% from the list price of $99.98).

This 14-disc DVD set has all four Christopher Reeve movies — Superman – The Movie, Superman II, Superman III, Superman IV – The Quest for Peace — along with Superman II – The Richard Donner Cut, an expanded version Superman – The Movie, and Bryan Singer’s more recent continuation of the franchise Superman Returns. There’s also bonus materials, plus three extra discs of documentaries and other bonus materials.

Also included in this megaset are all of the 1940s Fleisher cartoons, a mini-reprint of Superman #7 (from 1987), with script and art by John Byrne, and much more.