Warner Bros. finally confirmed to The Wall Street Journal, after months of speculation, that the studio is taking the Superman franchise to a new direction. In addition, the studio revealed that "Justice League" and "Batman vs. Superman" have been put on indefinite hold, which isn't really much news. How this will affect Bryan Singer and star Brandon Routh, however, remains to be seen.

"Warner Bros. also put on hold plans for another movie starring multiple superheroes -- known as 'Batman vs. Superman' -- after the $215 million 'Superman Returns,' which had disappointing box-office returns, didn't please executives. ''Superman' didn't quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to,' says Mr. Robinov. 'It didn't position the character the way he needed to be positioned.' 'Had 'Superman' worked in 2006, we would have had a movie for Christmas of this year or 2009,' he adds. 'But now the plan is just to reintroduce Superman without regard to a Batman and Superman movie at all.'

With 'Batman vs. Superman' and 'Justice League' stalled, Warner Bros. has quietly adopted Marvel's model of releasing a single film for each character, and then using those movies and their sequels to build up to a multicharacter film. "Along those lines, we have been developing every DC character that we own," Mr. Robinov says.

Like the recent Batman sequel -- which has become the highest-grossing film of the year thus far -- Mr. Robinov wants his next pack of superhero movies to be bathed in the same brooding tone as 'The Dark Knight.' Creatively, he sees exploring the evil side to characters as the key to unlocking some of Warner Bros.' DC properties. 'We're going to try to go dark to the extent that the characters allow it,' he says. That goes for the company's Superman franchise as well."

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