What if Superman was less blue and more red?

In 2003 comic book author Mark Millar created a three-issue series that posed the question: ‘what if Superman had been raised in the Soviet Union?’

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The series was an alternate history that mixed DC Comics heroes with real life political figures including Joseph Stalin and John F. Kennedy, and instead of fighting for ‘truth, justice, and the American way’, he was ‘the Champion of the common worker who fights a never-ending battle for Stalin, socialism, and the international expansion of the Warsaw Pact’.

Catchy.

Now however Millar has confirmed that Warner Bros, the film studio who bring DC Comics stories to life on the big screen, have been pitching Red Son to various directors in Hollywood, in a tweet to Jordan Vogt-Roberts, the indie director turned Kong: Skull Island director, who also admitted he had originally pitched the story to studio bosses but had been told no.

‘This thread is giving me tangential pangs of what-could-have-been for the version of Red Son I pitched that will sadly never get made. Oy,’ tweeted Vogt-Rpberts, before Millar replied: ‘Did you hear WB pitching directors Red Son? Two diff pals in last 2 months. This truly is Putin’s America.’

Millar later revealed that although he has friends at the studio who had confirmed the news, it had never been discussed with the creator of the series.

‘I think they’re just going through their back catalogue of big books and hoping to lure in good directors as opposed to any particular interest in developing Red Son,’ he told Den Of Geek.

‘There’s always 50 conversations for every comic book movie that gets made and as far as I know this is something that is very much just at conversation stage.’

(Picture; DC Comics)

It’s an interesting development, particularly as the DCEU mainline – which includes Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman films – has been struggling in recent years with lacklustre reviews and box office grosses that are nowhere close to matching their rival, Marvel.

Viewers are smart enough to recognise that one Superman movie may not be part of any other cinematic universe, and with the times we’re currently living in – with the American justice system currently trying to determine in Russia intervened in the 2016 presidential election – a story about an American hero growing up as a socialist could be the film we need right now.

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