Superman Won't Soar Again Until Summer 2013

Warner Bros has pulled The Man of Steel from a planned late 2012 release date and has slotted it to open wide on June 14, 2013 release. The Zack Snyder-directed reboot of the Superman franchise feels like a summer film anyway. Henry Cavill stars with a cast that includes Henry Cavill, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Amy Adams, Diane Lane and Russell Crowe. The distribution calendar is just forming for films that far in advance, but what’s also interesting about that date is it strays close to the expiration of certain rights that revert back to the estates of creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Warner Bros has spent a fortune defending its position to keep the Superman rights–some say as much as $25 million in legal fees–but right now it looks like there will be a splitting of rights between the creator estates and DC Comics. As long as the film has been shot, Warner Bros won’t have problems releasing the films, but you don’t reboot Superman to make one movie, so there will likely have to be some stunning court decision or a major payday for those heirs if Man of Steel is to soar in a trilogy of movies.