‘Superman’ puts Snyder to the test

He had a promising debut, a monster hit, a slight disappointment and a slightly larger disappointment. And in the last few weeks he’s become one of the more polarizing directors out there.

Now things really get interesting for Zack Snyder.

The provocative filmmaker will in a few months begin shooting “Superman: Man of Steel,” a reboot of perhaps the most beloved character in movie history.

But just where exactly do Snyder’s fan cachet, and box-office drawing power, lie in the wake of “Sucker Punch”?

The director of “Dawn of the Dead” (the promising debut), “300” (the monster hit), “Watchmen” (the slight disappointment) and “Legend of the Guardians” (the slightly larger disappointment) unveiled his girls-with-guns action-adventure last weekend.

Although the box-office results showed Snyder still has plenty of supporters – “Sucker Punch” opened to about $20 million, the second-lowest number of his career but a respectable figure that was in line with pre-release expectations – the film also caused divisions among not only critics, but fanboys and fangirls, with some naysayers taking the opportunity to assess Snyder’s “Superman” chops.

“ ‘Sucker Punch’ is a loud, gaudy, fetishistic, bombastic piece of cinema,” wrote Ain’t It Cool News contributor Ambush Bug. “It’s also hollow, remedial, and bereft of substance. … As the minutes passed, bringing me closer to the time for the credits to roll, all I could think of was how wrong of a choice this director is for a Superman film.”

Warner Bros., which is behind both “Superman” and “Sucker Punch,” has drawn a distinction between the two films.

Jeff Goldstein, Warner’s executive vice president of distribution, said that “a film like ‘Sucker Punch’ brought out (Snyder’s) core fan base, but he has a lot of potential, and with a bigger, broader title, he can attract a wider audience, as he has in the past.”

Much of his success will course depend on the quality of “Superman: Man of Steel.” Hard-core fans are often skeptical toward casting and filmmaker choices at first but come around when a movie opens.

And plenty of directors, of comic-book movies and every other genre, have managed to turn around even groups hard-wired to oppose them (see: Oliver Stone and conservatives on “World Trade Center”).

Still, once a filmmaker loses currency with the fan community, it’s not always easy to get it back. That seems especially true for a property such as “Superman,” where even those storytellers who come in with buckets of goodwill can run into problems (just ask Bryan Singer).

Snyder has his work cut out for him. It just may not be superhuman work, at least not yet.