Is Superman going to get the Dark Knight treatment?

According to the folks over at Deadline Hollywood, Christopher Nolan is being tapped to be a mentor of sorts for a third reboot of the Superman film franchise.

Following his successes with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, one can’t blame Warner Bros. for thinking he could help revive the franchise. After all, it’s been over three years since Superman Returns hit the screen to critical and fan ennui. Maybe he could make a difference.

But let’s not rush to assume this is a good thing. Isn’t this pretty much the same thinking that got WB into this mess in the first place? Bryan Singer, who had turned the X-Men mutants into household names, was given free reign to create Superman Returns as an homage to Richard Donner‘s work on the original films.

The result of Singer’s work was as hotly contested as Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. And no wonder. They both tell of Christ figures having a child that religious conservatives or comic book zealots consider blasphemy.

Now Nolan is entering the Superman picture. While Nolan’s plate is undoubtedly too full (including a third Batman film) to allow him to direct, the WB is hoping some of his vision (and box office mojo) will rub off on the Man of Steel. But what could Nolan do to make Superman more poular? Make him darker? Make him more brooding? Let’s hope not.

The Superman franchise definitely needs a fresh approach, but I hope they don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. The art direction in Superman Returns was solid, setting Superman in a Metropolis that was both modern and timeless.  Likewise, the score is a classic that needs little to no tweaking.

I would like to see more of the impact of Superman on society. The key to Superman is not in who he is or what he does, but the affect he has on others. He inspires. He makes us want to be better. There’s a reason why he’s in Metropolis, a City of Tomorrow, rather than Gotham.

For my money, the one thing the Superman movies have missed is the one thing that made the television show Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman so good. Lois and Clark are reporters and they used their reporting skills to uncover the villain’s plot every week. For some reason, the films seem to ignore that fact — except as a plot device to get Lois into trouble. Work in more investigative journalism and adventure for the human characters (including Clark). Save the big action for the climax.

Villains I want to see: Brainiac, Metallo, Parasite, Lex Luthor and Bizarro. I’m not suggesting using all of them in one film, but they could certainly play off each other the way Joker and Two-Face did in The Dark Knight. Wouldn’t you love to see Kevin Spacey as Luthor becoming the catalyst that alerts Brainiac to Superman’s existence?

However the WB and the newly minted DC Entertainment handle this, I hope they understand that Superman is not irrelevant or out-of-touch with the modern world. Just because he’s good and pure doesn’t make him less interesting than Batman. His power to inspire is the key to making him relevant.

Ignore the cynics and ask yourself: What Would Superman Do?