Coming Soon: Man of Steel

That’s right folks, most of you know this already, but Man of Steel is coming out in 2013- June 14^th, 2013 to be exact. A whole new remake of Superman Returns, it will star a whole new cast and crew, but it will keep most of the visual and special effects from Superman Returns.

Zack Snyder (Watchmen, 300) will direct, and it will star Russell Crowe as Jor-El, Henry Cavill as Superman, Kevin Costner as Clark Kent’s dad, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, and Michael Shannon as General Zod.

The official synopsis, from the official site, basically restates which people are involved in the movie (with Christopher Nolan acting as producer)- and it is to be known that although there is an upcoming Justice League movie, this new Superman series (and Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy) will have nothing to do with it. Another synopsis states, “Shaped by the values of his adoptive parents Martha (Diane Lane) and Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner), Clark soon discovers that having super abilities means making very difficult decisions. But when the world needs stability the most, it comes under attack. Will his abilities be used to maintain peace or ultimately used to divide and conquer? Clark must become the hero known as “Superman,” not only to shine as the world’s last beacon of hope but to protect the ones he loves.”

While the movie’s set is closely held secretive, there happens to be a rumor around that there is a surprise villain besides General Zod in the movie. Will Kevin Spacey make a surprise appearance as Lex Luthor? Probably not, since Man of Steel is still technically considered a reboot, but mostly because LEGO hasn’t made a set for him. If you’re a die-hard Superman fan, you’ve probably already heard of the rumor, but just this week, LEGO has released its movie based sets early, and it mentioned “Superman: Black Zero Escape” (as well as  “Superman: Battle of Smallville,” and “Superman: Metropolis Showdown”).  So while it is just a internet rumor at the moment, we will have to wait until the movie comes out to see if there really is a super villain cameo.

Michael Shannon himself has recently spoken of his new role as General Zod. “ He’s a general, on a planet called Krypton. I don’t know what to say about Zod, it’s crowded in secrecy. [Pauses] He’s a badass mofo . . . I will look slightly different than Terence Stamp because otherwise, what’s the point? It will all be slightly different… I’m going to be doing so many interviews for the Man of Steel. I’ll save it for then.”

Also, when asked about Superman and how hard it is to make a good guy interesting, Henry Cavill stated that, “I don’t think people know the character well enough. He’s a very interesting character. Because he’s always trying to do the right thing, doesn’t necessarily make him boring. He’s conflicted in his own ways and I’m speaking strictly just from source material when it comes from the comic books. What he has to go through is enormously difficult and if people just really think what it would be like, you’d realize that there’s a lot more to him than being a good guy. A lot more. There’s a lot to the man. When people say it’s tough to make him interesting, they just need to read some of the right stuff and they’ll see there’s a lot of very interesting things going on in that guy’s head.”

So for now, it seems we’ll have to wait until June to see if the Black Zero rumor is real, and more importantly, to see if this new reboot is actually good. For now, watch the two trailers below, one featuring the voice of Russell Crowe (Jor-El) and the other featuring Kevin Costner (Jonathan Kent). And if you play both of them at the same time, it almost sounds like the two are speaking to each other-Jor-El telling Kal-El to be strong and emotionless, while Jonathon Kent telling Clark Kent to be human and protect the ones he loves.

Jor-El:

Jonathan Kent: