The Guardians of the Galaxy writer-director and DC Studios CEO has turned his focus to the company’s ultimate hero. But will anyone ever fill Christopher Reeve’s 45-year-old red boots?
The old DC adage (with apologies to Voltaire) always went that if Superman did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. Perhaps such religious imagery goes some way to explaining why, despite umpteen reboots over the years, and even though the character had been in existence for four decades by the time he really arrived on the big screen, it is Richard Donner’s 1978 take, starring the quietly majestic Christopher Reeve, that remains the definitive iteration. For comic-book fans, that version of the man of steel really was right up there with Jesus and, frankly, there never has been a second coming.
Nobody could accuse James Gunn of not being up for a challenge then, following the news this week that the Guardians of the Galaxy film-maker will direct Superman: Legacy, from his own script. Not content with jumping in to take charge of Warner Bros’s stumbling DC extended universe – a movie mega-saga that has had more ups and downs than Batman has had run-ins with the Joker, the newly installed DC head honcho will now take charge of what is billed as an epoch-defining reboot for the last son of Krypton.
