‘Superman’ Reboot Being Produced By JJ Abrams With Ta-Nehisi Coates Writing

[obatalla]

repost issue

[obatalla]

The black population of the United States is about 13%. They're called minorities for a reason. There's not as many of them.

(Just slightly more than) One out of ever ten superheroes would be black going by those numbers. The Justice League has six members. One of them is Cyborg. Suicide Squad had eight members. One of them was black. Another one was whatever Killer Croc was supposed to be. On the Marvel side, there are only about ten solo characters that have their own movie. Black Panther is one of them. There are about 13-14 or so characters considered "Avengers" in the movies (depending on who you count.) Falcon, War Machine, Nick Fury, and Black Panther are four of them.

That's actually BETTER than real world numbers.

Hilarious that at the 2minute mark McDuffie describes you as a fan eleven years ago.

[bat39]

I am left with one question to ask and hope I will get some amazing good answer beyond, representation.... because if is about representation, DC can just create a new character.

What other reason would there be to change his race? when they do, they must make Ma Kent and Pa Kent black as I will dislike that a black Superman was adopted by White parents also does this mean Lois Lane will be black too?

See this is why I think a lot of problems will arise and not for the best, anyone remember black Johnny Storm and white Sue Storm from Fantastic 4 2015? If they want to make superman black, they better make his primary supporting system of characters mostly also black too, but guess what? this studios will never want to go that far.

This is another reason why I want them to avoid race-bending. They'll be catching heat not only from the right, but from the left as well. Because there will be constant critiques of how even the race-bent reboot "did not go far enough'' or how it didn't meet a certain socio-political expectation, or fell foul of something or the other.

Making Clark Kent black means that this movie ceases to be a media product and becomes a front in a political war. Every decision made will be scrutinized not on the basis of its creative or commercial merits, but on the basis of politics. And in the current political climate its impossible to make everyone happy, or even a large number of people happy. And WB needs most people to be happy to make bank.

Its not that the political controversy will just evaporate if its, say, Calvin Ellis. But things will be a lot easier if DC can claim that this is an ''Elseworlds'' take on the Superman mythos - a fun thought experiment and a purely creative decision. The narrative subtly shifts from "OMG! They're making Superman black" to "They're introducing a new version of Superman whó's kinda like Obama and is the POTUS on his world". That'll be an easier sell and get a lot more people on board, at least the general audiences and most comic fans. Haters are gonna hate anyway, and the political commentators will continue to do their thing, but it won't be nearly as divisive in a broder sense.

66% of the world population is asian so on one hand marvel/DC isnt representing all people accurately but on the other hand it's a minority success story

Frankly, I hate the idea of a 'quota' system when it comes to the media and entertainment industry. Its tokenism at its worst. Also, these movies are a business...not a government agency legally bound to meet demographic-based quotas.

The problem with Abrams is that his two Star Wars films were blatant rehashes of films in the first trilogy (though even TLJ was kind of still this for Empire). I fear his view of what is marketable and entertaining might just be to an attempt to rehash Donner yet again, when Superman badly needs something fresh. Both Singer and arguably Snyder rehashed Donner in their own ways.

While Snyder may have taken a bit of inspiration from Donner (mainly the use of Zod as the villain, and the Jor-El AI/Fortress), I think his take was something fresh. It just was a fresh take that went against how a lot of people perceive Superman (which is still largely shaped by Donner, as well as by stuff like Lois & Clark).

The sad part is that Snyder had an arc for his version of Superman, and we only really got to see the beginning, and maybe a bit of the middle. The Snyder Cut might show us a bit more, maybe even end with a more 'classic' Superman. And I think that's why people are disappointed that Cavill likely will not be returning - they want to see a fully-established Cavill Superman in a solo outing.

[Killerbee911]

Frankly, I hate the idea of a 'quota' system when it comes to the media and entertainment industry. Its tokenism at its worst. Also, these movies are a business...not a government agency legally bound to meet demographic-based quotas.

Yeah no that is bs imo, That is just away to allow comics to not change for better. It is forced thing to not have more minority character, The only thing that will fix that issue is the same forcing process. I don't understand how you can force 7 white characters it is not issue but forcing in black, Latino and Asian character is an issue.

Saying "Tokenism" is cool but how do you fix the problem? And there is a problem going let just create more Asian characters and just have them be small characters and disappear isn't helpful. DC has the atom, cassie cain, Kenan Kong, Katana, Conner Hawke, Avery Ho but what is the point when they are sitting on the sidelines or getting tiny roles. If you want to have more minority characters it takes forcing them and using them important stuff. If you want to call that tokenism that is fine but problem is being addressed and one day tokenism changes to yeah I like that character around because they are good.

Doing nothing is even worse than Tokenism.

[Lord Morph]

Was it really that hard to just green light an Icon movie? Especially when MBJ is producing a Static movie?

We won't get an Icon film unless Static does well. They're not going to greenlight multiple Milestone projects without seeing if there's interest and an audience there.

[Besouro]

There is nothing about Clark that tells me he has to remain White in order to retain the core traits of the character that most matter. If they end up using Clark I would prefer he’d be a white male but if a black actor comes along who captures the inherent qualities of the character then I’m mostly fine with it.

Either way, as I stated before I’ll reserve judgement for the project until a director is announced. Whether I get excited for the project or not depends on the caliber of filmmaker they hire.

By this logic, it also applies to MCU Thor can be Chinese or Aborigine, right?!?

Lolololol!!!

[The Gold Stream]

By this logic, it also applies to MCU Thor can be Chinese or Aborigine, right?!?

Lolololol!!!

he could i think, the way the MCU set up the asgardians as aliens instead of the actual nordic pantheon makes it possible

[Besouro]

All this talk about how a white character being white doesn't matter is troublesome on the face of it. No one would say that about any other group.

There is nothing about Cyborg or John Stewart that says they have to be black, but I don't think it would go over so well if they tried to make them another group.

I understand that there's tons of white superheroes and much fewer minority superheroes, but the idea that white superheroes and white people should be erased as a way to fix that has a subtext that's really unsettling.

Agreed and co-signed!!!!

Raceswapping /race bending is stupid and insulting to fans of the character and creators of the source material.

ORIGINAL CHARACTERS are much better were the character is not a cheap superficial paint job but also have/build their on own mythos despite sharing (or inheriting) the mantle title like Miles Morales/ Spiderman, Michael Holt/Mister Terrific, Jaime Reyes/Blue Beetle, Calvin Ellis/President Superman, Nubia/ Wonder Woman, etc.

[Killerbee911]

By this logic, it also applies to MCU Thor can be Chinese or Aborigine, right?!?

Lolololol!!!

Zeus was black in BBC Troy and Hemidall was black in MCU, It is fiction. Before you ask yes white actor could Blade or Black Panther but a better example is they could tell story of Black Panther in South America setting or Asian Setting.

[Besouro]

he could i think, the way the MCU set up the asgardians as aliens instead of the actual nordic pantheon makes it possible

And it makes sense to you?!?

If there were real life sub-saharan African gods portrayed as aliens in the MCU, would it make sense to you to have white actors play the part like Idris Elba did in Thor?!?

If Marvel was soooo desperate to have a black Asgardian then Elba should have played one of their own creations- Beta Ray Bill in human form, not insult Nordic natives.

Funny how my black people will get enraged over whites in God's of Egypt but applaud the nonsensical casting of Elba as an Asgardian in Thor.

[The Gold Stream]

And it makes sense to you?!?

If there were real life sub-saharan African gods portrayed as aliens in the MCU, would it make sense to you to have white actors play the part like Idris Elba did in Thor?!?

heimdall is from vanaheim not asgard, even in the comics. although they still changed some things for the MCU, including making hogun from vanaheim

but i do happen to think it was a waste of elba's star power for a relatively minor role

[Besouro]

Zeus was black in BBC Troy and Hemidall was black in MCU, It is fiction. Before you ask yes white actor could Blade or Black Panther but a better example is they could tell story of Black Panther in South America setting or Asian Setting.

That is the same Troy tv series that got bombarded for abuse of historical accuracy of characters .....it's like having a Chinese actor play Mandela.

Zeus and Greco-Romanians were white Caucasian people. There were actual REAL black Greco-Romans...why not use and develop them instead?!?

Just look at American Gods...... Anansi is played by a Blackman, British god, Russian god, Nordic gods played by whites, a Djinn played by an Arab, Indian god played by an Indian woman.....as it should be and it's marvellous.

Imagine that brilliantly legendary scene of Anansi in the slave ship talking to the enslaved blacks.... U think it was have been great or even made any luck of sense with a white actor as Anansi?!?

Lololol......and u actually think a white actor can be Black panther, king royality of a black African nation. This is like casting Voila Davis to play Queen Elizabeth. ROFL!!!!

[Besouro]

We won't get an Icon film unless Static does well. They're not going to greenlight multiple Milestone projects without seeing if there's interest and an audience there.

Agreed but I actually think they maybe rushing it a little.... Static does not have the same level of popularity as he did in the early 2000s. Just look at Marvel marvel is pushing Miles forward.

At the very least we need to see Static show up in more comics outside Milestone.

It would be nice to also bring back his animated series or at least give him 1 or 2 animated movies....and actually treat him to his own storyline in ongoing animated team projects like in Young Justice and Teen Titans(actually give him some badassery and character depth) as well as
Let Static b come a have guest starring appearances and recurring character and playable in the multitude of the many WB games

By the time the movie drops Static will be muuuch more wider known and with a greater chance as success.

[Midvillian1322]

While I really do want a proper traditional Superman. Snyders version just wasn't for me. So yea I wish we got another Superman Classic first. But there are so many more issues you can tackle with a Black Superman. So I'm really conflicted on this. Also funny seeing people be shitty about Coates calling him a hack cause they don't like what he did with Black Panther. Why they seem to think writing comics made him famous is beyond me. Him writing Black Panther was headline news because he had already blown up from his work. Anyway alot of crazy dynamics and issues you can tackle with a Black Superman. I would have saved it till after a well received Superman franchise was up and running.

You want to bring the toxic out of people announce a black version of a beloved character. Guessing it's half Snydercut people who mad his vision ain't going anywhere post Snydercut. And people who hate race bending. You know the people who cried about Fin being a balck storm trooper or Michale B Jordan playing Johnny Storm. Also might not even be racebending since sounds like he might be Calvin Elllis or Val-Zod

[Killerbee911]

Lololol......and u actually think a white actor can be Black panther, king royality of a black African nation. This is like casting Voila Davis to play Queen Elizabeth. ROFL!!!!

In the jungle while hunting the King Wakanda finds a white baby , the King raise the baby as his son. It is fiction, yes I think white character could be black panther but I explain Asian or Latino version would be better because you could adapt it differently.