Margot Kidder, like most people, is kind of down on the films in the DC Extended Universe, and not just because they’re boring and dispiriting. Her particular issue is with the tinkering that filmmakers did with the characters and tone. Just look at Lois Lane, the hotshot Daily Planet reporter that she played opposite Christopher Reeve in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and see what they did to this feminist icon in Man Of Steel and Batman V. Superman. “They took one of the best American actresses around, Amy Adams, and didn’t give her anything to do! I mean, how stupid is that?” Kidder vented in a recent interview with HeyUGuys. “They made her what used to be the girlfriend, which kind of ended in the ‘60s with women’s rights.”
She also laments the decision to change Superman from a “purely good person” into an angsty man-baby, and thinks that’s why the films she made with Richard Donner and Richard Lester will have a more lasting impact. “[T]hey always go back because [the 1978 Superman] was better written and directed. They go back to [that series] because they were so much truer to the comic books,” she explained. “Superman responds to women by saving them, saves the children and beats up the bad guys, if you will. In that sense, it’s so much simpler than the later films made it out to be. I think there was a cynical decision on the part of the studios … to hit the demographic of the millennials in the later films. I think the directors were good, the actors were good, but the basic approach wasn’t there.”
Still, Kidder’s disappointment in the latest Superman films isn’t about to get in the way of her taking on an acting gig in DC’s TV universe. The former full-time actress, who cameoed on two episodes of Smallville back in 2004, says she doesn’t need the work, but she’d be willing to stand next to people in capes once more for old time’s sake. “Yeah, sure. Depending on the script or what they wanted me to do. I am 67, I am an old broad now!” she told HeyUGuys. “So, I look back at this with much more amusement than I did. I don’t have a career I need to worry about protecting. My life has nothing to do with movies anymore. I live in a little town in Montana and basically do political activism. So, I guess it would be fun to fly in and do a couple of days’ work.”