So what would a “Superman” movie led by Christopher Nolan look like?
Ever since news broke that the director of the last two “Batman” movies had signed on to “godfather” the latest project about the Man of Steel over at Warner Brothers, speculation has run rampant about what the next movie would look like. Some rumors on-line have said that the movie would involve Metallo and Lex Luthor and might go under the title “Man of Steel.” Others have said it would be a complete franchise reboot while others have said it would pick up after “Superman Returns.”
The Los Angeles Times went right to the source to try to find some answers. And apparently, Nolan is willing to drop a few hints about what’s to come but won’t offer any details.
“A lot of people have approached Superman in a lot of different ways. I only know the way that has worked for us that’s what I know how to do,” Nolan said, emphasizing the idea that Batman exists in a world where he is the only superhero and a similar approach to the Man of Steel would assure the integrity needed for the film. “Each serves to the internal logic of the story. They have nothing to do with each other.”
The idea for the latest Man of Steel movie came one day during an impasse in writing the third Batman script with David Goyer. Nolan asked Goyer to let his imagination run wild and come up with an idea for a movie about the Man of Steel.
“He basically told me, ‘I have this thought about how you would approach Superman,’” Nolan recalled. “I immediately got it, loved it and thought: That is a way of approaching the story I’ve never seen before that makes it incredibly exciting. I wanted to get Emma and I involved in shepherding the project right away and getting it to the studio and getting it going in an exciting way.”
Goyer is now writing the screenplay and Nolan is keeping it close to the vest.
And while Nolan says he won’t necessarily copy his two Batman films, he says he will use the idea of having a deep cast as a template.
“I went to the studio with the analogy of ‘I want to cast the way they did in 1978 with ‘Superman,”’ where they had [Marlon] Brando and Glenn Ford and Ned Beatty and all these fantastic actors in even small parts, which was an exotic idea for a superhero movie at the time. It really paid off too. As a kid watching ‘Superman,’ it seemed enormous and I realized later by looking at it that a lot of that was actually the casting, just having these incredibly talented people and these characterizations. And Marlon Brando is the first guy up playing Superman’s dad. It’s incredible.”
Nolan went on to say that Goyer is currently drafting a script based on the idea they came up with, but he won’t offer any other details beyond that.
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