J.J. Abrams has only helmed six movies since making his directorial debut on Mission: Impossible III fifteen years ago, but as the chairman and CEO of Bad Robot, it’s not exactly as if he spends his downtime sitting around twiddling his thumbs.
His filmography behind the camera is hardly packed with variety, though, and outside of M:I III, it consists only of two entries apiece in the Star Trek and Star Wars franchises, along with the Amblin-inspired Super 8. Abrams is a lot more prolific as a producer, then, having been credited on nine TV shows and twelve movies since Bad Robot launched, and that’s without including the four additional projects he’s got in various stages of development for HBO Max or the recently announced Superman reboot.
So far, all we know for sure about the aforementioned film is that Ta-Nehisi Coates is writing the script with Abrams acting as producer, but the latest addition to the rumor mill claims that while J.J. is still a possible candidate to helm it, others at Warner Bros./DC are reportedly pushing for a director of color. It remains to be seen what’ll happen, but it doesn’t really matter who ends up calling action on the next big screen Superman pic as a lot of people are going to have issues with it regardless, based mostly on Henry Cavill not being involved.
Then again, it’s probably a smart idea to keep Abrams as far away from the megaphone as possible. He might be a lifelong fan that’s tried to resurrect the Man of Steel in the past, but his directorial efforts have been functional at best. He’s clearly a very creative guy with a great imagination, but his style has never signalled him out as a top-tier or particularly exciting presence behind the camera, something the Superman reboot will need in order to silence the doubters and critics.