Jesus Christ, Super… man?!

Thanks for the welcome, Jimmy.

Yes, it’s true: I’m not Jimmy. I don’t even play him on TV. At least for awhile, though, I’m going to be blogging on his site. (Since Jimmy is a guest critic on my site, Decent Films, perhaps there’s some cosmic balance in me being a guest blogger on his site.)

As Jimmy mentioned, this is my first venture into the blogosphere (as a publisher I mean), so I’m not sure yet what I’m going to blog about. I have a lot of the same areas of interest as Jimmy (language being one notable exception — not that I’m UNinterested in languages, but I don’t study them), so hopefully if I think something’s interesting it will stand a good chance of interesting those of you who read this site regularly (as I do).

So, here’s my first item: Could Jim Caviezel, best known as Jesus in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, be the next Superman?!

As a film critic and a comic-book fan, I follow closely news regarding comic-book movies, which, beginning with X-Men in 2000, have experienced a resurgence (and indeed have surged to unprecedented levels) after almost dying off with Joel Schumacher’s horrible franchise-killing and almost genre-killing Batman movies.

Until 2000, the big player in comic-book movies was DC Comics / Warner Bros, with their Superman and Batman franchises. Marvel Comics, home of Spider-Man and the X-Men, kept trying to get movies off the ground, but was bogged down in endless rights disputes resulting from terrible decision-making and ill-advised licensing agreements.

Lately, though, the shoe’s been on the other foot. Marvel has enjoyed a number of hits, especially in the X-Men and Spider-Man franchises (Spider-Man 2 is my favorite so far). DC, on the other hand, has been struggling for, like, almost a DECADE to get a new Superman movie made. A parade of potential directors (Tim Burton, Brett Ratner, McG), scripts, and stars have all come and gone, all to no effect.

Tim Burton, I kid you not, wanted to cast Nicholas Cage as Superman. Yes. Nicolas Cage. This from the same guy who cast Michael Keaton as Batman. And while Batman has arguably NEVER been well cast, Superman has never been POORLY cast. George Reeves, Christopher Reeve, Dean Cain, Tom Welling — they’re all good. Fortunately, Burton and Cage are long since gone from the project.

Now, though, DC may finally have gotten their act together. They’ve hired the creative team from the X-Men movies, including director Bryan Singer, to make Superman Returns (currently slated for 2006). Casting isn’t yet underway, but I’m sure Singer will make a good choice. After all, this is the guy who cast Patrick Stewart as Professor X, and it doesn’t get any better than that.

Would Jim Caviezel be a good Superman? Maybe. His work on The Count of Monte Cristo, more than anything, suggests he’s up to the challenge. In the abstract, though, I’m not sure I’d want to see Jesus playing Superman. Somehow I worry that it might alter my experience of The Passion of the Christ. Yet I enjoy Caviezel in Frequency and other roles without worrying about that. So maybe it would be all right after all.

BTW, it looks like Batman might finally be getting a break too. Christopher Nolan is directing Batman Begins, and has cast Christian Bale in the title role. The trailer looks promising.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

12 thoughts on “Jesus Christ, Super… man?!”

  1. Since superhero movies are one of my favorite subjects, I think this was a truly excellent first blog entry! On the topic, I heard the Nicolas Cage rumor at the time, and was glad it didn’t get made. Caviezel would be much better, and he’s hardly recognizable as himself in the Passion anyway, so I think his being in both roles wouldn’t detract from my enjoyment of either film. Still, after seeing Arnold as Mr. Freeze and hearing rumors of a Green Lantern comedy with Jack Black, DC is going to have to do something seriously impressive for me to even consider watching either one. And that’s coming from a die-hard fan of DC’s Silver Age.

  2. I think AH-nold could have worked as Mr. Freeze. The thing is, they would have had to play him as the sad, tragic Mr. Freeze from the Batman animated series and not the over-the-top human cartoon with moronic, campy dialogue that they gave us.
    But then that would have meant making a completely different movie than the one they were interested in making.
    It would have meant making a *good* one.

  3. I completely agree with you, Jimmy. _End of Days_, while no cinematic masterpiece itself, showed that Arnold could mix his standard action hero role with a sense of loss and tragedy. Both he and the Mr. Freeze character were wasted in B&R.

  4. I have a theory that nearly every villain in the Batman movies was miscast, or that all the actors were giving performances closer to ANOTHER one of the Bat-villains, so that if you mixed and matched them differently you could get a much better set of performances.
    In the case of Ah-nold as Mr. Freeze, my theory is slightly different. My idea is that they cast, or got, THE WRONG ARNIE to play Mr. Freeze. The only role in Arnie’s resume that remotely qualifies him to be Mr. Freeze is the Terminator. Grim, remorseless, devoid of feeling, Arnie in Terminator mode might possibly have pulled off a reasonably authentic Mr. Freeze. What they got, of course, was Arnie in full-blown Last Action Hero / True Lies self-parody mode, which was obviously completely wrong.
    On to the other villains…
    There was nothing wrong with Nicholson’s Joker… that I couldn’t fix… with my hands… no, sorry, wrong script. There was nothing wrong with Nicholson’s performance that couldn’t have been fixed by (a) eliminating his attempts to have a sense of humor and then (b) recasting him as Two-Face. Nicholson was all wrong as the Joker, but he would have been a great Two-Face — certainly much better than Tommy Lee Jones, who OBVIOUSLY had NO IDEA how to play Two-Face. I kept wanting to slap him and shout “TWO-FACE DOESN’T GIGGLE!”
    The RIGHT actor to cast as the Joker, OF COURSE, was Jim Carrey, who was OBVIOUSLY doing the Joker and NOT the Riddler. The Riddler is sly and reserved and amused by his own cleverness; he’s not giddily over the top like Jim Carrey. Granted, Carrey’s Joker would have been more of a Cesar Romero / Mark Hamill Joker than a Frank Miller Joker, but a Casar Romero / Mark Hamill Joker is better than a Cesar Romero / Mark Hamill Riddler; and plainly Carrey wasn’t doing ANYBODY’S Riddler, whether Gorshin’s or the much more interesting Edward Nigma of the animated series.
    That leaves Tommy Lee Jones to play the Riddler, and while Jones’ sorry, sorry turn as Two-Face wasn’t much more appropriate for the Riddler than it was for Two-Face, at least the above reshuffling would have produced two good performances out of three.
    Then there’s the women. It really is eerie how close Michelle Pfeiffer’s aloof, disdainful Catwoman could have been to a really good Poison Ivy. And Uma Thurman’s vampish moments as Ivy, losing the eye-rolling bits, could have worked really well in a Catwoman costume.

  5. If only they would’ve consulted you first. This is, I suppose, why you are in the business of reviewing movies.
    I had never thought of switching the actors around, but I’d agree with you on every one of them (including leaving DeVito as the Penguin and switching the women). I like Nicholson as a previously-repressed good guy whose enraged side takes control at the flip of a coin, and Carrey’s careless and lighthearted attitude matches well with one of the scarier aspects of the Joker, i.e., that the killing is all a joke for him. And with all the mischievous giggling, Jones could have at least passed as the Riddler from the Super Friends cartoons, who couldn’t seem to stop laughing.
    Anyway, that’s some great insight, and although I will now be forever tortured with what might have been, I’m glad to have heard your thoughts.

  8. Didn’t Christian Bale play Christ as well for some TV movie? Steve, can you see any symbolism or have any theological take on this, that we have a two former “Jesus’” playing two popular yet very different super heroes?

  9. Hullo Steven – good to have you in the blogsphere! 🙂
    IMHO, Jim Caveziel would be a better Batman because of quiet reserve. Superman needs to be able to be gawky as Clark Kent and then massive as Superman. (You’re quite right that they’ve never really messed up casting for Superman before – although I’ve had issues with pretty much every single Lois Lane.)
    However, I’m not particularly sold on Christian Bale as Batman – I saw the trailer, he looks not-too-bad in the suit, but his last decade of movies haven’t impressed me much. There’s an enigma to Batman that I feel neither the movie business nor the MODERN comic books have been able to figure out. Actually, one of the better Batmans I’ve seen was an indy short – “Batman vs. Predator” – I think it may be available via AtomFilms.com The resolution was silly, but the visuals were spot-on.

  10. Hello All,
    This is an interesting thread. I’m a young guy who grew up on the Chris Reeve Superman and the Mike Keaton Batman. I personally think both were the definative interpretations of the two Heros. The Villians, I feel were always well portrayed. Though, obviously the films were sometimes on the campy side. The great thing is that Chris Nolan and Bryan Singer are creative enough to ressurect the DC Heros.
    As for Jim Caviezel, I have been advocating Jim Caviezel as Superman even before “The Passion”. I felt he brought a strong human perspective to Superman. Well, see how it goes.

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