When it was
first announced I assumed it was going to be a character study of Superman, similar to what Todd Phillips did with the
Joker.
And considering Ta-Nehisi Coates was the writer, I would expect it to be a think-piece that would be up for consideration for Oscars; Best Picture and the like. Because that's the kind of writer he is.
It was never going to be a four-quadrant movie that the whole family would go and see. No, that's something that I assume James Gunn is going to do, Superman for the masses, for the hoi polloi, for the common man. A DC Studios Superman.
Ta-Nehisi Coates' Black Superman I assumed would have been Superman for the haute monde, for the high society. The corps d'elite. Superman for people who read The New Yorker and The Atlantic. And a Warner Bros. Pictures Superman.
And James Gunn's Superman I suspect Warner Bros. wants to make close to a billion.
Ta-Nehisi Coates' Black Superman I suspect Warner Bros. would be absolutely thrilled with... $500 million, maybe (and that may be a little high). What they would probably want most are Oscar considerations and perhaps wins, in again, the Best Picture category, and Best Screenplay. Maybe Best Actor. That type of thing.
James Gunn's Superman is meant to serve as the foundation of a connected cinematic universe and make a tremendous amount of money.
Ta-Nehisi Coates' Black Superman is being positioned to win Best Picture and be something that the studio heads can brag about at their Hollywood parties -- "Look at how special were are. Look at what we've done, how genre defying we are; how above everyone else we are." [insert smiley face]
The latest rumors that I'm aware of...
So can't fly, only able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, champion of the oppressed, and the Ultra-Humanite from
ACTION COMICS #13 as the possible bad guy, and love letter to Siegel and Shuster.
And I joke that they should probably call it
The Super-Man, because it sounds like he would be a super man, a man with super powers.
And while this is of course rumor, it does sound like something Ta-Nehisi Coates would do.
I'm one of the pretentious people who read The Atlantic and are therefore the target audience for a Ta-Nehisi Coates Black Superman movie.
And I've read Ta-Nehisi Coates' articles and essays for years and am a fan and agree with a lot of what he says. And I've read a couple of his novels (and they're non-fiction;
We Were Eight Years in Power and
Between the World and Me). And so while the above is just rumor, I could see him writing something like that.
Interesting, back in October
The Hollywood Reporter said it was a "multidecade-spanning story." I guess we'll see about.
As an aside, earlier this year it was
reported that Nia DaCosta was going to direct Ta-Nehisi Coates'
The Water Dancer, his fiction novel, for MGM, with Oprah Winfrey's production company producing. So we'll see how that develops.
In
an interview last year Ta-Nehisi Coates has this to say...
Well said.
Anyway, yeah, for the people who aren't down for the Ta-Nehisi Coates' Black Superman, it's like... yeah, it ain't for you. It's not being written for you. You are not the intended audience.
It's being written for and is intended for the audience the see the kind of movies that win Best Picture. I suspect
Joker was like that too. It just happened to connect with enough people and somehow made a billion dollars on a $60 million dollar budget. Things happen, I guess.
And yes, I absolutely loved the
Joker. I think it's the greatest comic book movie ever made. And if Warner Bros. makes Ta-Nehisi Coates' Black Superman movie, I am sure I will proclaim that the greatest comic book movie ever made supplanting the
Joker; because I know thyself.
But yeah, this Ta-Nehisi Coates Black Superman movie, if it happens, and apparently it's still not dead yet, it's a vanity project, it's a prestige project. And it's intended for a select audience. It's not intended for everybody. No, that's James Gunn Superman.
Fan cast, and I don't usually do that, but I would fan cast Monsieur Regé-Jean Page as the Black Superman...
I think he could be a good Black Superman, and he has a fanbase that would support him. And his build is irrelevant. Because it would be "Ta-Nehisi Coates Black Superman," not comic book Superman.
But yep, the Ta-Nehisi Coates' Black Superman I would assume would be ars gratia artis, art for art's sake.
The kind of stuff that Warner Bros. does from time to time.