By Travis Johnson
Suicide Squad‘s big weekend box office must have put some snap back in the stride of the money men at Warner Bros, as word is they’re moving forward with Man of Steel 2. The Wrap reports that the project is now in active development, noting that it is due for a release sometime after Justice League, Aquaman, and most likely Ben Affleck’s Batman movie – so, think 2018 or 2019.
Even the most ardent DC fan must admit that Superman, nominally the brand’s premiere hero, has been particularly ill-served by the DC Extended Universe. We should have gotten a Man of Steel sequel this year, but the first film’s relative under-performance saw it reconfigured into Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (“just add Batman” seems to be DC/Warner’s solution to everything and, to be fair, it seems to be working from a financial perspective, if not a creative one). The thing is, given audience responses to how Superman was characterised in BvS and where the film left him (although we know he’s coming back in Justice League in one manner or another), it’s hard to say what another solo outing could do with him – or, indeed, for him, in terms of rehabilitating current perceptions.
This is not a world where a big – and potentially lucrative – trademark like the Last Son of Krypton gets left in the deck, though, so expect more news in the not-too-distant future about the further adventures of the Man of Tomorrow – depending, of course, on what shape Suicide Squad is in after its second weekend.