Well, this is an interesting development. Deadline Hollywood has exclusive news about the development of a new Superman film.
Christopher Nolan has been asked by the execs at Warner Bros. to oversee the development of a reboot of the Superman franchise, since Superman Returns didn’t meet the expectations one would expect of The Man of Steel. After The Dark Knight became the most successful movie in the U.S. since Titanic you just knew that Warner Bros. would like to keep Nolan close by. The studio even took on the spec script Inception, even though it wasn’t obligated to do so. As that film nears its release (July 16), an idea has already been hatched for a third Batman film, which will be written by Nolan and frequent collaborator Jonah Nolan, and David Goyer. Goyer, who co-wrote Batman Begins and developed the story for The Dark Knight, is hard at work on the story. (See Inside Pulse’s TV story about Goyer exiting the FlashForward series.)
While I don’t think Nolan will direct the new Superman film, at least it puts an end to the speculation on what will become of the franchise 3 1/2 years after Superman Returns. That film’s director, Bryan Singer, has gone back to Fox and Marvel Comics to work on a new X-Men project. It’s clear that Warner Bros. wants the Superman property to thrive for audiences worldwide.
But ever since the Superman sequels of the ’80s, Warner Bros. has run into trouble in trying to retool the Man of Steel. In the late ’90s, Tim Burton tried to make a Superman movie with Nicolas Cage set to star. By 2004, TV show wunderkind J.J. Abrams wrote a script that was going to be the first part of a trilogy. He wanted to direct but was inexperienced as a feature filmmaker (last year, Abrams rebooted Paramount’s Star Trek franchise and it was a big hit for the studio). Other directors that were attached to oversee Abrams script included McG and Brett Ratner, but budget issues kept the project from getting the go ahead.
In an interesting twist, it was Brett Ratner who directed the third installment of Marvel Comics’ X-Men franchise for 20th Century Fox, while Bryan Singer, the director of the first two, bolted to do Superman Returns for Warner Bros.
Seeing the success that Marvel Comics has had with tentpole pictures like Iron Man, and the fact that Disney bought the company last year, Warner Bros. knows how lucrative comic-book characters can be. With the success of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, Warner Bros. and DC Comics are progressing nicely with Green Lantern with Martin Campbell as director and Ryan Reynolds as the headlining star.
Source: Deadline Hollywood
