Lex Luthor

There's little in the way of story details just yet, but Latino Review does cite Brainiac and Lex Luthor as the villains. Hooray for Brainiac, but can we please skip Luthor for at least one installment of the series? No film has quite gotten the character right, and I'd rather see Supes face off with someone he can actually have physical action scenes with -- Parasite, Mongul, Bizarro, anyone but Lex Luthor.

A new Superman movie sounds like a really tough sell, and this is coming from a guy who actually liked Bryan Singer's homage to Richard Donner. I acknowledge that it wasn't the Superman movie than most fans wanted to see, but it still strikes me as odd that Superman would ever be in a position where he'd actually be hard to market. Once bitten, twice shy, I guess. I'm hopeful that Nolan and company can turn this image problem around. There's still a lot to love about the Man of Steel.

Just last month, Warner Bros. decided to shelve the idea of a new Superman reboot, ending any recent chance to wipe Superman Returns from our heads. (Sorry fans, but aside from the shot to the eye, that flick was anything but cool.) Yet now I find myself wishing they'd reconsider, and it's all because of Smallville.

I'm not a fan of the series. I've watched a few eps, shrugged with an "eh," and couldn't even get tantalized by the inclusion of James Marsters, who singlehandedly gave Torchwood new life during its second season. But now... As you might have heard, Julian Sands recently signed on to play Jor-El, papa to Superman (or Kal-El as he was once called). And now there's a whole slew of stills from the Season 9 episode "Kandor" over at Daemon's TV.

It makes me want a new Superman. A LOT. I want Sands to be thrown on the big screen, and see a remake that intermingles great, but unexpected names with the usual mainstream box office flair. It would be such an easy way to add a lot of talent without breaking the bank with the biggest of big names. Sands as Jor-El... Definitely Jon Hamm as Supes. Fixing the ol' artist mistake and casting Philip Seymour Hoffman as a with-hair Lex Luthor. Or back to the lesser known, a bald Clancy Brown for Lex, riffing on the animated series. (Thanks to my geek king Michael Holmes for that one.) You could go obvious and beefy for Brainiac, or get all-out talent with, say, Hugh Laurie? And to wipe the abysmal Lois Lane casting, I say Vera Farmiga would be killer alongside Jon Hamm.

And with that, I'm dying for a remake. Would you buy it with some heavier and older talent, and who would you cast?