Odds are you could probably care less what DC decides to title their Man of Steel sequel, which is set to pit the near invisible Superman again a PTSD-suffering billionaire who dresses like a bat and wears a lot of black makeup, but the latest list of possible titles is sure to induce the slightest of gags from the masses still with the truffley taste of Christopher Nolan‘s Battrilogy still lingering in our mouths. I’m of course not accounting for of bottom-tier puns (here all focused on swapping knight in for night, GET IT?!) who this batch of title treatments seems custom tailored for. The rest of us though can collectively sigh at the rampant stupidity taking place over at Warner Bros and the world of superhero sequel namers at large.
The runt of the new name litter is probably Man of Steel: Battle the Knight which sounds like the name of an animated title intended for 5-year olds yet to learn the idiosyncrasies of the language. Yank that colon out for Man of Steel Battles the Knight, or just go the next step for Man of Steel Battles the Dark Knight, and there’s at least something of interest that also reads like a normal sentence. As is, it sounds like the juvenile attempt of someone who secured an unflattering C in high school English.
Since the dawn of the Silver Surfer, the colon has become so overused in the blockbuster films that it’s essentially become a required part of a name for anything with a hundred million dollar plus budget. Even more important than the colon is the need to tack the word ‘dark’ somewhere in there (it’s just a no-brainer amiright?). This year’s Star Trek: Into Darkness is the best example of a misused colon couple with the useless inclusion of the word ‘dark’ (why not just Star Trek into Darkness or, more appropriately, Star Trek: Wrath of Khan: Part Deux). Thor: The Dark World is another great example of just throwing a colon and the word ‘dark’ at a title and expecting oohs and ahhs from wide-eyed fanboys.
As for this super DC conglomerate, there’s not much to this list of titles that catches my interest but, who knows, maybe people will just eat ’em up. What do you think of the following?
- Man of Steel: Battle the Knight
- Man of Steel: Beyond Darkness
- Man of Steel: Black of Knight
- Man of Steel: Darkness Falls
- Man of Steel: Knight Falls
- Man of Steel: Shadow of the Night
- Man of Steel: The Blackest Hour
- Man of Steel: The Darkness Within
At this point why don’t they just go with Man of Steel: Night of the Knightt…oh wait. That actually has a nice ring to it. I think I’ve officially just spitballed a better title than WB’s collection of caffeine-slobbering goons jammed in a conference room somewhere, feeding from their 100k salaries.
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By: Matt Oakes
Started blogging about film in college when the university paper wouldn’t have him. Dislikes your consensus film Twitter favorites. Devotee of horror movies that make him die a little inside. Catches films at festivals when he can. Proud SFCS and OFCS member and Tomatometer-approved critic. Editor-in-chief of Silver Screen Riot.
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