BRAINIAC, SUPERGIRL… What’s Going on With MAN OF STEEL 2?


Nobody seems to be too sure about what’s going on with the Man of Steel sequel. At one point it seemed that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice would be that sequel, however as time goes on it becomes increasingly apparent that it’s something different entirely, leaving the door open for another solo movie. Unfortunately, that may not be happening for a while.

For some reason, rumours have been fairly persistent about the follow-up over the past few weeks despite an apparent lack of progress. It started out with one saying that George Miller of Mad Max: Fury Road would direct; then it was said he has the opportunity but nothing is decided, and the film is “delayed indefinitely”. Now the case has opened up again with a whole batch of fresh spoilers and rumours involving who could be showing up in the potential sequel and that whole George Miller fiasco. There’s about three different stories going around, so rather than be click-baity-whores and report on all three individually (even though we are click-baity-whores), we decided to compile it all in one piece, making it easier for you!

Until another story hits tomorrow or Friday, that is.

Man of Steel

First off, Heroic Hollywood published a fairly optimistic report regarding the movie, saying that it hasn’t been “delayed indefinitely” and that Supes is still an integral part of the big plan. Echoing other statements, they said it’s basically George Miller’s if he wants it, however they’re also offering Justice League Dark, the movie Guillermo del Toro was developing before he called it quits (and now his next project could be doing the same). The most interesting tidbit, though?

BRAINIAC!

Brainiac-1

Apparently in Zack Snyder and David Goyer’s original pitch to Warner Bros. for a sequel, the cyborg was to follow in General Zod’s footsteps onto the big screen. Even if this was false, it isn’t too much a stretch of the imagination for him to be introduced; if they want this cinematic universe to survive then Superman needs to face off against villains who aren’t called Zod or Lex Luthor.

The next day, they followed up on their report with some actual plot details. To your average comic book fan’s ears it may sound like the coolest things since sliced bread, but to me it could really go either way. Perhaps the best thing since the Dyson vacuum cleaner instead.

Sir-James-Dyson_2064492b

Supposedly, Brainiac rocks up on Earth with the intention of tracking down Kara Zor-El, better known as Supergirl. That may sound a little crazy, however her existence in this universe is actually canon. In a Man of Steel prequel comic, people were surprised when Goyer hinted that Supergirl could have escaped Krypton as well and made her way here. DC are obviously fans of the character, given this and that she’ll be getting her own show starting on CBS this season.

Cast your minds back to 2013, when you were sat down in the theater watching Man of Steel. You may remember that Zod was after the Kryptonian codex used to create life which was hidden inside Superman; for one reason or another, it’s inside Supergirl too, and Brainiac wants it. However, he already has a little bit, which he uses to create…

…Bizarro.

Yup. They really wanted to throw everything in, huh?

His role in the movie would be the “muscle,” as he’s sent to capture Kara. Provided nothing changes between now and, uh, 2020, Supergirl will have almost an equal amount of screentime to Superman and will probably be presented as a modern, kick-ass, independent female character. While the idea is certainly appealing, I do wonder why Snyder and Warner Bros. seem so intent in messing with one of the movie’s core themes – that Clark is alone. Not in a superhero sense (imagine if Man of Steel was within its own universe…), however he was labelled as the world’s first hero which has since been retconned by Batman, and now he’s not even the last Kryptonian.

I dunno. It could work. It would be an interesting dynamic and could potentially draw in new audiences; and hey, if George Miller ended up doing it then this Supergirl could be as badass as Furiosa!

Completing the consecutive three-day unleashing of rumours, Birth. Movies. Death. swooped in with their own take on matters. They seem to be hearing something along the lines of the original story: Superman solo movies are effectively dead for now while Warner Bros. focuses on the rest of their stable. Shame, but we’ll have no shortage of the Big Blue Boy Scout over these next few years.

“every whisper I hear about Justice League contains the word ‘Brainiac.'”

This could suggest that Brainiac has been moved over from Man of Steel 2 to Justice League, which makes a lot of sense – he’s interesting and powerful enough to require the assembling of all these heroes. It’s not exactly surprising, either. Man of Steel was two years ago and a lot has changed since then. Even more is gonna change over these next couple of years, so by the time the studio does get around to this sequel, it’s likely that all of this that’s leaked in the past few days will be out the window or already covered, as could be the case with Brainiac.

There is one more little interesting tidbit over at BMD concerning Batman v Superman, so do make sure to check that out.

MAN OF STEEL

While those original ideas for Man of Steel 2 don’t sound so bad, that was before everbody settled on the idea of throwing Batman into the mix. Hell, that was back when Justice League was supposed to come out this summer. Can you imagine? Jesus.

The point is, lots has changed since that original pitch meeting. A sequel probably won’t be happening until 2019 or 2020, by which point we will have had Batman v Superman, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash, two Justice League movies, The Flash, Shazam, Cyborg, Batman and, if the date is 2020, Green Lantern Corps. That’s a hell of a lot of DC coming our way, the original ideas for this flick will probably have been scrapped. This isn’t breaking news; this is a “what if?”.

What if we got a Superman/Supergirl team-up movie rather than Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice? Are we fans better off with how things turned out? Sound off!