THE NAME IS WAYNE....BRUCE WAYNE.
An example of what I was talking about below; how audiences just in it for the entertainment handle change. We've just gotten an announcment of the new James Bond. He's the sixth guy to handle the role.
And the audience just accepts it. There is no movie explaining away the change from Pierce Brosnan to the blond guy. No tortured narrative feints and dogdges about surgery gone bad, or how Bond is now undercover and officlally dead or somesuch. Nope. Just a new actor, new movie, new explosions, same audience. When the franchise turns more serious after the Roger Moore era (see here for a little summary of Bond through the ages) there is no explaining the previous films as the product of drugs, or SMERSH plot. The tone of the film simply changes, no explanation needed nor given. No one tries to explain how Bond fought was around during the Cold War and is still thirty.
Which is a healthy thing. There are only so many people willing to get so emotionally entangled with a character to need justifications of change. The rest--the ones who make up the bulk of the people who spend money in the world--simply want a good, entertaining story. If your market is such that a story explaining the story is a blockbuster....well, it seems to me that you've already lost the casual fan. There really shouldn't be that many people who desperately care how different Supermen compare to each other; there should instead be lots of people who care how the Superman story is going to turn out.
An example of what I was talking about below; how audiences just in it for the entertainment handle change. We've just gotten an announcment of the new James Bond. He's the sixth guy to handle the role.
And the audience just accepts it. There is no movie explaining away the change from Pierce Brosnan to the blond guy. No tortured narrative feints and dogdges about surgery gone bad, or how Bond is now undercover and officlally dead or somesuch. Nope. Just a new actor, new movie, new explosions, same audience. When the franchise turns more serious after the Roger Moore era (see here for a little summary of Bond through the ages) there is no explaining the previous films as the product of drugs, or SMERSH plot. The tone of the film simply changes, no explanation needed nor given. No one tries to explain how Bond fought was around during the Cold War and is still thirty.
Which is a healthy thing. There are only so many people willing to get so emotionally entangled with a character to need justifications of change. The rest--the ones who make up the bulk of the people who spend money in the world--simply want a good, entertaining story. If your market is such that a story explaining the story is a blockbuster....well, it seems to me that you've already lost the casual fan. There really shouldn't be that many people who desperately care how different Supermen compare to each other; there should instead be lots of people who care how the Superman story is going to turn out.