It was recently revealed that Matthew Vaughn was in talks to direct Man Of Steel 2. A move which has divided the fanbase, some believing that Vaughn is not the right fit, and others who embrace his vision for a modernized version of Donner’s Superman.
As many people know, Vaughn directed
X-Men: First Class, Kick-Ass, Kick-Ass 2, and
Kingsman among others. While I can’t say I’m a fan of all of those films, many of them I do enjoy. Vaughn’s at his best when he balances characterization with action; a balance that he doesn’t always achieve in my opinion, but one that he is capable of doing.
The recent sequel to
Kingsman is an excellent example. It favors action over characterization, and this makes the end product suffer. We are not given any material to cause us to gain sympathy with Eggsy to see him grow as a character.
The jury’s still out in regards to
Justice League but the past two performances by Henry Cavill as Superman have gained a lot of criticism for the writing of the character, we’re simply not given enough material to sympathize with. He’s simply a man punching aliens and giving attitude to people whenever possible.
Vaughn could fix this. If he could balance the action with genuine character moments like he did in
Kingman and
Kick-Ass then I think he could create an iteration of Superman that’s genuinely a joy to watch on screen, rather than feeling like a chore to sympathize with.
The other issue is of course that massive tonal shift. If Vaughn were to change perception on Cavill’s Man of Steel, this would be a stark contrast with his performance in the other films, and that might be hard to stomach. Many people have learned to accept Cavill’s Superman, but if we get a new take on his character, it likely will not fully mesh with the less desirable parts seen before.
At the end of the day, there’s still a lot of uncertainties. I for one think Vaughn is a good choice for the role, and it’s possible he can turn an unlikable character into someone I actually volunteer to root for, then again, the character might still be near impossible to relate to. If he does take the role, Vaughn has a large task set ahead of him.