The upcoming Superman movie is going to be overseen by the reboot specialist that handled Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.
Deadline Hollywood has learned that Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan is now a part of Warner Bros’ next Superman movie project. It’s well known that Warner was unhappy with 2006’s Superman Returns, so the company hopes to breathe life into the red-speedo wearing hero with his next movie by putting it under the watchful eye of Nolan.
Batman Begins and The Dark Knight were both reboots, both huge successes, and both directed by Nolan, so it’s almost elementary to bring him onto Superman to see what can be done. It appears unlikely that Nolan would direct the next Superman movie, but is instead taking on the role of “godfather” as more of an overseer. The project is very early, so nothing is set in stone just yet, but according to a DH insider: “It would definitely not be a followup to Superman Returns.”
Another insider revealed: “We know what we don’t want to do. But we don’t know what we want to do. We learned a lot from the last movie, and we want to get it right this time.” Seemingly, the property is too valuable to leave sitting for 3.5 years like it has, and a copyright claim could be complicating matters even further, so the clock is ticking. This may be why Warner decided to bring in their golden boy, Christopher Nolan, who is currently finishing up work on sci-fi film Inception.
It’s too bad that Superman can’t actually be Dark Knight-ed. Batman has been a campy mess in the past, but his current status is that of a noir-style hero, so he’s easy to take in a darker direction. Superman is the shining star in DC’s pantheon, an all-American hero of comics, so I would think any revamp would have to be done very carefully. The Death of Superman, where a character named Doomsday came along and nearly killed Superman, was a huge comics event and might be a good place to start for the new movie. Doomsday is properly evil, and could be a good contrasting dark to Superman’s light. Just give me a nod in the credits if you do it, okay Warner?
Source: Deadline Hollywood
Published: Feb 9, 2010 09:40 pm