Can Zack Snyder rescue Superman?

• Will General Zod get a promotion?

Update 1: This image (right) is designed by Dan Sabato.
Update 2: Michael Shannon (a.k.a. “Boardwalk Empire’s” Agent Nelson Van Alden) has been cast as Zod, which might bode very well indeed.

Super-fans on the internet have reacted with decidedly mixed feelings to the news that Warner Brothers has tapped Zack Snyder to a reboot of Superman, tentatively scheduled for release around Christmas of 2012. Christopher Nolan (Inception, The Dark Knight) will produce and David S. Goyer (Batman Begins, the Blade trilogy, Dark City) will write the screenplay.

On the plus side, Snyder can unquestionably craft indelible images and stylish set pieces and showed obsessive fidelity with his previous comic book adaptations, 300 and Watchmen. His weakness goes hand-in-hand with his strengths, however, and the human touch frequently eludes his treatment of screenplays and actors. As a shining exemplar of individual possibility, Superman probably won’t be as bloodthirsty (or R-rated) as 300’s Spartans or Watchmen’s Rorschach, but I’ll bet we see Snyder frequently present Kal-El via his signature move, which the AV Club describes as “where the action drops into slo-mo, then speeds up again sharply.”

Perhaps Warner Bros, chose to go to an opposite extreme of the studio’s previous director on a Kryptonian feature film, Bryan Singer, who took a cerebral approach to Superman Returns that arguably paid excessive homage to Richard Donner’s films. Snyder can reliably deliver the flash, but whether he can bring something substantial is a big question mark. Most recently, Snyder helmed the fightin’ owl movie Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, but the Superman job might represent Warner Bros. vote of confidence for Snyder’s upcoming project, Sucker Punch (due in Spring of 2011). The film depicts a group of young women’s attempt to escape from a mental asylum, and while Snyder has called it “Alice in Wonderland with machine guns,” it also looks like Shutter Island by way of Terry Gilliam and Robert Rodriguez:

Possibly to be called Superman: Man of Steel, the new film’s villain may be General Zod, beloved from Terence Stamp’s plummy portrayal in Superman 2, but nothing’s probably definite at this point. (Snyder’s facility with virtual environments would make him a natural to render Darkseid and Apokolips.) After the jump, find out just how low the Superman franchise has stooped in the past.