2021 is becoming quite the super year for the Man of Steel.
Less than a week after the well-received premiere of The CW series Superman & Lois, Deadline has confirmed reports that a new Superman film reboot is in the works with comics writer, journalist and author Ta-Nehisi Coates writing and J.J. Abrams producing under his Bad Robot production company.
According to the article, Hannah Minghella will serve as producer and there are details yet regarding the plot or casting despite reports of Man of Steel and Justice League actor Henry Cavill wanting to reprise his role as Superman/Clark Kent.
Back in November 2019, Variety reported that there had been discussions with Abrams, whose company Bad Robot signed a massive first-look deal with Warner Bros., and there was a meeting with Black Panther actor Michael B. Jordan earlier in the year with Jordan pitching his vision for Superman.
Coates, 45, is the current writer of Black Panther and Captain America for Marvel Comics and is the author of the non-fiction books The Beautiful Struggle, Between the World and Me, and We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy. His first fiction novel, The Water Dancer, was published in 2019.
Abrams, 54, previously directed the films Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Star Trek (2009), Star Trek Into Darkness, Mission: Impossible III, and Super 8. In addition, he created the ABC series Alias, and co-created the television series Felicity, Lost, and Fringe. Currently, Abrams is working on a TV series based on DC Comics' Justice League Dark for HBO Max.
In 2004, Abrams wrote the screenplay for Superman: Flyby, a Superman origin story that included Krypton besieged by a civil war between Jor-El and his corrupt brother, Kata-Zor (not Zor-El). Before Kata-Zor sentences Jor-El to prison, Kal-El is launched to Earth to fulfill a prophecy. Adopted by Jonathan and Martha Kent, he forms a romance with Lois Lane in the Daily Planet. However, Lois is more concerned with exposing Lex Luthor, written as a government agent obsessed with UFO phenomena. Clark reveals himself to the world as Superman, bringing Kata-Zor’s son, Ty-Zor, and three other Kryptonians to Earth. Superman is defeated and killed, and visits Jor-El (who committed suicide on Krypton while in prison) in Kryptonian heaven. Resurrected, he returns to Earth and defeats the four Kryptonians, while the script ends with Superman off to Krypton, leaving a cliffhanger for a sequel.