Diane Lane Will Be Supes' Mom

Warner Bros. has announced that the Oscar-nominated actress Diane Lane (A Walk on the Moon, Unfaithful, Secretariat) will play Martha Kent, Clark Kent's adoptive mother in the new Superman film directed by Zack Snyder. Deadline reports that Lane will star opposite Henry Cavill, the 27-year-old English actor, who will play Superman/Clark Kent.

Rumors continue swirl around other casting decisions for the film, which is slated to debut in December of 2012. Diane Lane’s co-star in A Walk on the Moon, Viggo Mortensen has been mentioned in several reports as being at the top of the list to play the villain General Zod, who was portrayed memorably in the 1980s by Terrance Stamp in Superman II. And a number of actresses are supposedly vying for the role of Lois Lane .

Snyder needs to get his Superman film underway by this summer, which means there will be more Superman casting announcements in the near future.

Guy Ritchie Offered "Xerxes"

In what, if true, has to be one of the major studio reversals in years, Warner Bros. has supposedly offered Guy Ritchie the chance to direct an adaptation of Frank Miller’s Xerxes, the prequel/sequel to Miller’s 300, which was one the most successful (in ratio of revenue generated versus expense of production) comic book movies of all time. Zack Snyder, who directed 300, had been preparing to helm Xerxes , so the fact that the studio has offered the project to Ritchie is quite shocking.

The source of the Ritchie/Xerxes rumor is New York Magazine’s usually reliable Vulture Blog, which provides several explanations for the move, the most convincing of which is Warner Bros.’ need to get Snyder’s Superman movie made in a hurry or face losing rights to the property. Clearly getting the Superman movie made is a major priority at Warners. And since it’s been 4 years since the 300 movie stormed theaters, the studio may have thought it was also important to get going on the Xerxes project while there were still a few people out there who remembered how popular the 300 movie was. Miller’s Xerxes, which will be published first as a six-issue mini-series and then collected as a graphic novel, is due to launch this year.

Vulture also speculated that Warner Bros. is very disappointed in Snyder’s genre mash-up Sucker Punch, which debuts on March 25th and reportedly has had some less than triumphant preview screenings. Snyder’s Watchmen and Legend of the Guardians were underwhelming at the box office, but then the studio was pretty much aware of that when they gave him the reins to The Man of Steel project.

Fox and Warner "Watchmen" Feud Escalates

September 2, 2008

The legal battle lines have been drawn in the dispute between Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox over the rights to create a screen adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s Watchmen graphic novel. According to the New York Times, which reviewed papers filed in federal court in Los Angeles on Friday, lawyers for both sides have “laid plans for a frenzied fight.” Fox continues to request an injunction that would prohibit the planned March 6th debut of the Watchmen film directed by Zack Snyder, while Warner Bros. continues to maintain that there is no legal merit to Fox’s suit.

The dispute is centered on that murky corner of developmental hell known as “turnaround” in which a studio basically gives up on a project, but in order to save itself the potential embarrassment of a rejected film becoming a success for another studio, producers who take the project elsewhere have to give the original studio another look at the project anytime “changed elements” (new casting, new director, new script, new budget, etc.) come into play.

According to Warner Bros., Producer Lawrence Gordon offered the project to Fox once again in 2005 right before he took it to Warner Bros. The Times reports that Warners is asking for an April trial date, while Fox has called for a June trial. It appears likely that, if the dispute does go to trial, Universal, Legendary Pictures, and Paramount, who were all involved in the lengthy gestation of the Watchmen movie project, will “be drawn into the fray.”

While there are no signs of a deal yet, there is plenty of incentive to get one done. The slick Watchmen trailer has driven sales of the Watchmen graphic novel through the roof (see “A Million Copies of Watchmen”) and spurred excitement for the movie among a considerable fan base. The Watchmen movie is a potential 300-size Q1 hit for Warners, and irate fans are already considering a boycott of Fox films in retaliation against the studio's Watchmen lawsuit. If Fox does succeed in getting an injunction barring the March 6th debut of the Watchmen movie, it may well prove to be a Pyrrhic victory.