No

The second the credits rolled on Shazam, I believed, for the first time in years, that it was possible to make a Superman movie that fans would like.

David F. Sandberg managed, in a movie that seemed to take everything I’d loved about Superman (movie and character) as a kid; the idealism, moral absolutism, and pure joy inherent in a man who can fly and who isn’t creepy about it, and funnelled that energy into a film about Superman’s most obvious plagiarist.

It was glorious. And a part of me hoped, as I watched Zack Snyder’s experiment in graffiti as film crash and burn in spectacular fashion that, out of the wreckage, we’d get a Sandberg directed (or inspired) Superman reboot to launch a reset of DC on film.

That hope, per Sandberg’s recent dismissal of his helming any such project, has now been flattened like so many buildings in the climax of Man of Steel. Worse, the reason he gave for not wanting to touch a Superman movie felt personal. “Hardcore fans” he said, would be pissed off “no matter what you do.”

As a lifelong Superman fan, that made me bristle. Hardcore Spider-Man fans have turned out for three iterations of the character in the last 20 years, Batman has had four in the past 30. We’re about to get another reboot of the X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises. Surely Superman fans can’t be so intolerable that the prospect of touching the property causes talented directors to curl up in fear of us, the fans?

I’m gonna take a stand and say it isn’t necessarily us, but rather the character that poses unique challenges right now.

The things I listed up top as Superman’s virtues can sometimes cause serious division. Especially the moral absolutism. In other times that character trait has been used, on film and in comic book form, to navigate morally grey real world quagmires. For Superman, “there is a right and a wrong in this universe. And that distinction is not hard to make.”

Except…

That’s not necessarily the healthiest view in a world that’s becoming more divided by the minute. After all, when we’re collectively having a hard time determining right from wrong, except to assert that I’m right, and you’re definitely wrong, every other viewer would see Superman as a tyrant instead of a hero.

The question might not be whether you can make a Superman movie that pleases most of the fans (who aren’t, after all, any more vocal than those of any other franchise) but whether it’s possible to make a Superman movie in 2022 that doesn’t turn the character into a fascist nightmare from one view or another. I found Snyder’s grim take on Superman to be repellant; you might find a Sandberg version hopelessly naive and hokey.

As a fan though, I have hope. Superman is the greatest, purest superhero of them all. I believe someone will come along and give us a version of the character that can heal some of these divisions between us, and appease even the most demanding fan.

As long as he has underwear on the outside of his pants. And the S shield is the right size. And the boots are the right length. And his cape has a big prominent S on the back. And the S is the symbol of the house of El.

And…