J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot will produce an upcoming reboot of the Superman film franchise, with Ta-Nehisi Coates writing a story about a Black Clark Kent. In new comments provided to Collider, J.J. Abrams has said that after spending years working on Star Trek and Star Wars, he’s passing on directing another pre-existing property like Superman or another DC Comics hero to focus on original ideas.
Abrams says, “I know that Hollywood is a place where it used to be that people would be inspired by something that they would see or an old film or a show or something and think, ‘Oh, here’s my response to that. Here’s a version of that that.’ It’s become a place where, more often than not, you see something and people get inspired by it and go, ‘Let’s redo that exact thing.’ I feel like, as someone who started writing in television and telling original stories on film and in TV, it is something that I really do miss. The few things that I’m working on now, as a writer, are original ideas. I just feel, as a director, I really would love to have my next projects be things that didn’t pre-exist me necessarily.”
