Casting rumours for the new Superman reboot continue to fly – and Mad Men’s Jon Hamm is currently in the crosshairs…
According to Warner Bros' schedule, its planned reboot of Superman is heading to screens in December 2012. Straight off, we'd like to be the first to bet that it get nudges back to the following summer, which seems the more natural place to release a big budget superhero blockbuster. But we digress.
The reboot is being overseen by Christopher Nolan, with David Goyer and Jonathan Nolan working on the screenplay. The latter is still strongly rumoured to be directing.
Yet, who will be playing the Man of Steel himself? That's been the subject of Internet rumour for many months now, with Chuck star Zachary Levi being one of the most mentioned. However, the current rumours are surrounding Mad Men star Jon Hamm instead. The source of said rumours can be found over at TMT, where the site is quoting sources saying that the actor is being "seriously considered" for the role.
However, we don't buy it.
The problem Hamm faces, sadly, is his age. Right now, he's 39 years old, and we can't imagine that Warner Bros would look at anyone over 30 to headline a franchise it wants to make more than one more film from. Assuming that Warner Bros would look for a three-film arc from its new reboot, that'd put Hamm closer to 50 than 40 by the time the third film came around, and sadly, that's just not how the modern movie world works.
We'd love to see him cast, though, to be fair (not least because he appears to have something of George Reeves about him). And given how well Robert Downey Jr turned out as Iron Man, it'd be a real pity if age got in the way.
Furthermore, there's another problem with this latest round of rumour-mongering: the TMT piece dates back to July, although it only recently seems to have been widely picked up upon. You can read it here anyway, if you're curious to do so.
Hamm would be a bold and welcome choice to play the Man Of Steel, and his casting would be a prime indicator that we're not - thankfully - going to go down the origin story route again. Yet, we'd still be amazed if this happens.