“It’s nice to be asked”: Is it a bird, is it a plane, or is it Keanu Reeves almost playing Superman?
Superman carries with him a certain weight of expectation; those broad lycra-clad shoulders have to carry the world sometimes, quite literally, and so we naturally need the square-jawed, cape-wearing hero to act with calm authority.
What we don’t expect is for him to speak in a kind of gormless Californian slacker ‘no way dude’ manner, but had things gone differently, and Keanu Reeves landed the part, that’s what we might have ended up with.
Now look, I’m not saying Reeves isn’t decent at what he does; well, most of what he does. He’s very good in a suit, jumping on and off a motorbike, shooting tens of goons in the face because he’s angry about a puppy in John Wick. He’s very good at driving a bus continuously quickly to avoid Dennis Hopper from blowing it up, and he’s equally adept at time-travelling in a phone box and occasionally playing air guitar.
But when Reeves isn’t good, and there have been several examples of it, things are not good at all. There’s his turn as a member of the English aristocracy in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, for example, in which his accent was enough to make Drac himself just close the lid to the coffin again and go back to sleep. Then there was The Watcher, in which Reeves played the least scary serial killer in history, basically Professor Snape as a mildly upset teenager.
So, The Matrix aside, it’s fair to say the Canadian actor has a mixed record when it comes to films. It’s concerning, therefore, to learn that not long after that serial killer film, he was approached by the director Brett Ratner, who was looking for a ‘Man of Steel’ to play the lead in a blockbuster Clark Kent reboot called Superman: Last Son of Krypton
Reeves himself said some time later: “When Superman came around, I think I was one of 110,000 people who got asked to do that. When studios have a big film like that, everyone wants to be a part of it, so it’s kind of like this feeding frenzy, like raw meat thrown into the ocean. So yeah, I’ve been around those, but it’s never been real. But it’s nice to be asked.”
Right, I’m not saying that they asked 109,999 people to do it before finally just saying ‘Keanu Reeves?’ for a laugh, but it certainly seems that way. Regardless, he never did end up as the slick-backed hair, Kryptonite-fearing superdude, and the viewing public was spared. In fact, there was a long gap between Superman movies, almost 20 years from Superman IV: The Quest for Peace to Bryan Singer’s eventual reboot of Superman Returns in 2006, starring Brandon Routh, who wasn’t a big enough name to carry it, and remains so.
Although it performed pretty well at the box office, it wasn’t good enough for Warner Bros, who cancelled a planned sequel, and the franchise went quiet once again until Zack Snyder got hold of it in 2013 with Man of Steel, which saw Henry Cavill slip into the blue and red super suit.
Reeves has, on the other hand, been up to his usual trick of doing an equal amount of good and bad stuff. There’s a John Wick 5 coming (good), he just released Outcome with Jonah Hill (bad), he’ll be voicing Duke Kaboom again in the needless Toy Story 5 (bad), and Constantine 2 is also on the way (no idea, could be good, could be bad).
