So much for Warner Bros really taking their time deciding what to do with the Man of Steel! Group President Jeff Robinov confirmed to The Wall Street Journal that they plan on rebooting the franchise, a'la The Incredible Hulk. "Superman [Returns] didn't quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to," says Robinov. "It didn't position the character the way he needed to be positioned. Had Superman worked in 2006, we would have had a movie for Christmas of this year or 2009. But now the plan is just to reintroduce Superman without regard to a Batman and Superman movie at all."

The plan is to release four comic book movies in the next three years -- including a third Batman (no word on whether Nolan is returning), a new Superman, and two other unnamed DC characters. Robinov also confirmed that Warner Bros plans to adopt the Marvel route of a single film for each character, and then building on those origin films to create crossover stories, rather than just jumping into the deep end of the Justice League pool. The only worrying part about Warner Bros new plan is that they are still drunk on The Dark Knight, and want their superhero films to follow that mold. Robinov feels that "exploring the evil side to characters" is the way to approach all the DC characters. "We're going to try to go dark to the extent that the characters allow it." Including Superman.

As most of you noted in the comments, and as anyone distantly familiar with the character knows, a gritty approach is really not the one to take with Superman. He's the good old boy, an American icon, the complete opposite of Batman. He's also, arguably, one of the easiest characters to make into a family friendly comic book film. Superman is ideal for kids because he lacks the moral gray areas Batman revels in -- or should. I'm glad they're rebooting, but I'm wary of the dark direction they plan on taking.

[via SuperheroHype.com and thanks to Eli Gutierrez]

What's really going on over at Warner Bros. regarding their superhero properties? Is Justice League still moving forward? Has Christopher Nolan already signed on to direct a third Batman film? Will they attempt a move similar to what Marvel is doing and plot out solid solo flicks before combining worlds? Well, Variety recently spoke with Warners Chief Alan Horn, production prexy Jeff Robinov and Gregory Noveck, senior VP of creative affairs for DC Comics, and they brought back a few answers regarding all this fun stuff.

Firstly, a deal is officially on the table for Chris Nolan to (we assume) co-write and direct a third Batman film, however he hasn't made a decision yet. Horn said, "We have no idea where Chris is going with this. We haven't had any conversations with him about it." Hopefully an announcement on that front will arrive soon. With Justice League, Warners does eventually want to make it, but it definitely seems the early bad buzz from within the fanboy community is what put the breaks on this one.

Originally, it looked as if Warners was going to use JLA to launch solo efforts for a bunch of DC properties. Now, however, we're hearing a different tune. Horn notes they want to turn "the properties into viable movie product in an intelligent way so that we introduce them like planes on a runway. They have to be set up the right way and lined up the right way and all take off one at a time and fly safe and fly straight." So then what does this mean for the future of Justice League ... ?

So I just returned home from checking out the New York Film Festival's closing night film, Persepolis, which is an amazing little animated flick about a girl coming of age during the Islamic revolution. Sony Pictures Classics is releasing it in December, it might get nominated for a Best Foreign Language Oscar (it's currently France's selection, so we'll see), and, heck, it might even win. An Oscar! For a film starring an animated girl from Iran! Go figure. The theater was pretty crowded, because from what I gathered people were still interested in films featuring women in the lead roles. I know I am. By now you probably see where I'm going with this -- in case you haven't heard yet, Warner Bros. chief Jeff Robinov is still simmering in some hot water over comments he allegedly made; how, ya know, he doesn't want to make any more female-driven films because ... The Invasion and The Brave One didn't do so well? Yeah, I don't get it much either.

Nikki Finke, the blogger over at Deadline Hollywood who broke the story, continues to go on and on about the fiasco, while, I imagine, folks over at Warners are scrambling to correct this PR nightmare. Finke reminds me of that girl from Can't Hardly Wait who runs around throughout the entire film trying to get people to sign her yearbook. Whatever happened to that girl after everyone completely dissed her? Where did she go after high school? What is she doing now? Let me take a wild guess ... Anyway, I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around this whole thing. If it's true, and Robinov did say those things, then why is he blaming the actresses? I asked a friend of mine, who saw both The Invasion and The Brave One, if he didn't like the films because of Kidman and Foster. His answer: "I didn't like them because they sucked. Kidman and Foster had nothing to do with that." And why did he go to see them in the first place? "I like Kidman and Foster." Heh. (I wonder if they changed the name to Legally Blonde: Invasion of the Purse Snatchers, if, then, people would've showed up to see it?)

I tried reading Finke's reports, but I just got a headache. They're filled with lines like, "And then a Warner Bros. rep told me ..." and "Three studio insiders claimed to have ..." and "When I got off the phone with the agent whose rep used to be a studio exec ..." Who gives a sh*t? Should we care about this story at all? Seriously. Warner Bros. could make 70 films in a row about homosexual kangaroos from Egypt, and it still wouldn't change the fact that my electric bill is too high. Should we boycott Warners? No. Why? There are very few guarantees in life: 1. A lot of folks making the decisions in Hollywood are morons. 2. 300 is and will always be a pile of crap. 3. Female-driven films simply don't do well at the box office unless they star Reese Witherspoon doing her best Valley-girl accent, and 4. There will always be something better worth seeing on any given weekend, be it on DVD or in the theater. Like Persepolis. So let Warners make their testosterone-laced, male-driven films, and the rest of us can go about our lives knowing there will always be a choice when it comes to what we watch, when we watch it and who we watch it with. Isn't that what's most important here?

Over at her blog, Nikke Finke has written a long and somewhat contradictory post-mortem on last weekend's big news story, spawned by her, that Warner Bros. no longer sees women as viable leads for their motion pictures. She notes a number of communications she's had over the last few days with Robinov, the studio chief who apparently made the offending comments, but says they are off the record and won't discuss them. She also strangely calls his e-mails "charming" at one point before returning to defend herself against accusations of overreach on this issue. Just as I was rolling my eyes and about to flip away from the blog, I noticed that Finke also throws in something on the Justice League movie. She says Robinov "has been saying he would only make Wonder Woman ... as a spin-off of Justice League. But his proviso is that Justice League, about four superheroes including Wonder Woman, would have to do really, really boffo to justify having a female as the main star of a spin-off pic."

This makes sense to me. I bet Robinov tried to lock Jessica Biel into some indentured servitude contract that would pay her peanuts for both the Justice League film and a low-budget Wonder Woman stand-alone to follow (think Catwoman-level cheapness), and she balked. If that's the case, then what is Robinov's problem? Why doesn't he just stop postponing the inevitable and cast Jennifer Connelly in this thing -- honestly, could anyone else do Wonder Woman justice? -- pair her with an A-list male star to alleviate concerns over womanly box-office punching power and throw money at someone to write a script that's actually not terrible. How hard could it possibly be?