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Armie Hammer is a giant, beautiful human. Now that we have that out of the way, it’s very obvious — after his scene-stealing turn as the rowing Winklevoss twins in THE SOCIAL NETWORK — that he would make a swell giant, beautiful Kryptonian. However, as he blabs in an interview with Vulture, at 24 he’s too young for the upcoming Zack Snyder Superman movie which will deal with a more mature 35-40 year old Man of Steel. Given that we’ve seen the original of Superman told so well in the Christopher Reeve versions, an older I-know-what-I’m-doing Man of Steel might be a good change-up. It’s also more in line with the age of Christian Bale’s Batman. And, it just feels more Curt Swan, y’know.

Hammer also spills on the ill-fated George Miller JLA movie — he was tagged to play Batman — which was literally on the brink of being filmed in Australia when a tax dispute forced Warners to pull the plug. It sounds like a lot of preproduction was completed, and given Miller’s obvious strengths as a director, this might have been pretty cool.

When we were down there on the soundstages, they would take our cell phones from us if they had cameras on them. This was so top secret and so locked down, it was like walking into the Pentagon. It was very, very character-specific. It did have a semblance of a battle-armor feel, but at the same time, because it was so character-specific, it was all made out of the finest materials. Because Batman has such incredible resources, his utility belt was made from the finest Italian leather and highly polished, and the things that would come out of his forearm, they were titanium but wrapped in very fine leather. I mean, it was all really well-done, very utilitarian. This was before Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight had come out, and this was going to be the first movie where Batman would be able to turn his head [in the cowl]. We had the first bat-suit that let the head turn, it just never got the chance to make it onto the screen. …The thing with Justice League is that he created an entire universe, and everything was done. They had pre-vizzed a lot of the special-effects sequences, and we saw some of the fight sequences without even having filmed them yet. There was a giant room that he had turned into the storyboard room — this huge conference room that had floor-to-ceiling storyboards on the walls — and you’d start at one point and just walk around the entire room and by the time you were done, it was frame-for-frame the entire movie. We saw it on paper and we were going to bring it to life, we just never got the chance.

1 COMMENT

  1. I just can’t see Warner Brothers signing off on a 40-year-old actor as Superman. If this new film does well, Warners is certainly going to want a sequel or two, which means a potential 46-year-old Superman down the road.

    Granted, they could always recast the role for sequels as they did with Batman post-Michael Keaton, but I don’t think Val Kilmer and George Clooney were effective Replacement Batmen even without Joel Schumacher as director.

  2. Armie Hammer’s performance in The Social Network was terrific. He has a great voice and would make a great Superman. Even if he isn’t cast, they should dub in his voice for Superman.

  3. I remember reading that the various costumes were designed and built by Weta Workshop, of “Lord of the Rings” fame.

    I’d love to see what they looked like!

  4. There’s bound to be enough material for a great coffee table book about the JLA movie that could have been. It sounded really exciting. I wonder what their Hawkman designs would have looked like…

  5. >>It sounds like a lot of preproduction was completed, and given Miller’s obvious strengths as a director, this might have been pretty cool. <<

    His (the ROAD WARRIOR George Miller, right?) last film was HAPPY FEET. Before that, BABE: PIG IN THE CITY. Neither of those are making anyone's desert island list.
    And there's no way anyone would have bought a 20 y/o Batman.
    This would have been a fiasco, fawning press agents notwithstanding.

  6. There is a lack of understanding and misinformation here that Superman character needs to be portrayed by a 40 years old actor, Jon Hamm only for the sake of passing as tough and mature looking Superman.

    It’s the actor’s technique of embodying Superman, discovering the character’s physicality and gesture where his acting skills, voice techniques etc come to play.

    Christopher Reeve, a skilled stage actor was utterly convincing as a tough, commanding, strong Superman even though he was just a young boy of 25 years.

    There is Armie Hammer and quite a few young talented actors out there in Hollywood who have got the looks and skills to portray a commanding Superman. And a 39-40 year old Superman means that they have to also cast a middle aged 38-40 years old Lois Lane. We don’t want Kingdom come.