Before Zack Snyder, Christopher Nolan Met This Hollywood Legend To Direct Man Of Steel

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In 1978 Richard Donner's "Superman" sketched out a blueprint for the modern blockbuster, demonstrating not only that comic books could provide quality source material for Hollywood studios, but also that treating that source material with the utmost reverence made for one hell of a film. "Superman" was the movie equivalent of its subject matter: somehow embodying the Man of Steel's ethos of truth, justice, and the American way, while sprinkling in a good helping of hope and optimism.

In the wake of "Superman" and its three sequels came a wave of superhero movies, most of which followed Donner's blueprint in some fashion. But in the early 2000s, "The Bourne Identity" kicked off the "gritty reboot" trend in Hollywood, which director Christopher Nolan harnessed to brilliant effect with his Batman movies. By the time that trilogy wrapped up in 2012, Hollywood was still in the throes of its love affair with giving everything the Jason Bourne treatment, and Warner Bros. was no exception.

After "The Dark Knight Rises," the studio tasked Nolan with helping to reinvent Superman by having him produce a new movie featuring the Man of Steel. Clearly, the studio hoped he could reinvigorate that long-dormant franchise in the same way he'd successfully reintroduced the Dark Knight to a whole new generation. The result was 2013's "Man of Steel," a film that featured Henry Cavill's debut as the titular hero and which kicked off the ill-fated DC Extended Universe in decidedly grim fashion. This was not 1978's "Superman." In fact, it was the anti-Donner movie, with director Zack Snyder bringing his cynical take on superheroes — which he'd demonstrated to okay effect with 2009's "Watchmen" — to arguably the biggest hero on the DC roster.

But it seems that Snyder was far from the only director being considered. Had Nolan gone with another of his choices, we would have see a very, very different take on Superman back in 2013.

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Knowing how the DCEU panned out, we might well ask why Christopher Nolan settled on Zack Snyder to direct "Man of Steel" back in 2013. Warner's shared universe petered out in spectacularly anticlimactic fashion in 2023, with a string of box office bombs that culminated in the disaster of superheroic proportions that was "The Flash." But in reality, the DCEU was in trouble prior to 2023. While multiple movies in the franchise had made serious money at the box office, not a single one was actually all that great and DC Films had never been able to match the success of its rival, Marvel Studios, and its then-gargantuan cinematic universe. Could Nolan have known this is how things would work out? Of course not. But even with that acknowledged, Snyder seemed like an odd choice.

It's not as if the "300" director really shared Nolan's affinity for practical effects or crafting the kind of "cinematic reality" the British filmmaker spoke about when constructing his Dark Knight trilogy. Perhaps, then, it was enough for Nolan that Snyder did not share Richard Donner's reverence for Superman, or any superheroes for that matter, as that happened to fit what Warner Bros. was looking for at the time. But had Nolan gone with another one of his choices, we might well have seen Supes given a much less deconstructionist treatment. 

Speaking to ComicBook.com, "Man of Steel" writer David S. Goyer (who also co-wrote Nolan's first Dark Knight movie, "Batman Begins") talked about the process of narrowing down a "Man of Steel" director, revealing that he and Nolan had met with "about five directors" before boiling things down to two choices: Zack Snyder and Tony Scott. Yes, Ridley Scott's brother, who sadly passed away in 2012, was in the running to direct "Man of Steel" all the way to the end. The man who during his lifetime could never convince critics he was any more than a hacky purveyor of style-over-substance schlock was apparently one of Nolan's final two choices to helm Superman's reintroduction to the masses. And I gotta say, I think I'd rather have seen that movie.

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Whereas Zack Snyder has a real talent for making big budget CGI-fests that are somehow impressively forgettable, all Tony Scott movies have a propulsive energy that would have at least made for an undeniably exciting Superman movie in 2013. That seems to be a sentiment at least partly shared by David S. Goyer, who elaborated on the process of whittling down the "Man of Steel" directors to Comicbook.com. "It was a very deliberative process," he said, later adding:

"Chris had already met with Tony Scott, so there's a version of a Tony Scott 'Man of Steel' in some parallel universe. I think Tony Scott doesn't get as much credit as he should be given, because he was an equally phenomenal director as his brother, and that's a movie I would have liked to have seen."

While Goyer would evidently have loved to see what Scott would have done with the material he did maintain that Snyder was "the right call," noting how he was excited by the director's plan to "shoot that movie handheld," which he thought was "a brilliant idea." That approach yielded what is arguably the best DCEU film in "Man of Steel," but it didn't exactly match what had come before. 

As it happens, Richard Donner had some strong opinions about the DCEU Superman. Specifically, he didn't really like it. The "Lethal Weapon" and "Goonies" director, who passed away at the age of 91 in 2021, gave Den of Geek his take on Snyder's deconstructionist shenanigans back in 2018, saying, "I think we're in strange, dark days of moviemaking, but Superman was a hero. He was a fantasy, but we believed him. He's not treated like that anymore. I'm not happy with it."

Would Scott's version have been more amenable to Donner? It seems likely, and while pleasing Richard Donner is absolutely not the approach a filmmaker should be taking, I'd argue it might be a tad better than Zack Snyder's "Wake the f**k up" approach to wish-fulfilment fantasy movie-making.