Nolan Wouldn't Be Involved in Man of Steel If Not For The Dark Knight Rises
Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises had a massive success and not only because it earned more than $1 billion, making it the highest-grossing Batman film to date. The movie prompted the creation of another iconic film, Man of Steel directed by Zach Snyder and starring Henry Cavill as Superman.
Screenwriter David S. Goyer, who helped Nolan with his Batman trilogy, recalled in his interviews with a number of industry media like Vanity Fair or Collider how the two got stuck with The Dark Knight Rises story and what exactly the writers' block led to.
"We were working on the Dark Knight film and we had writers' block. And I had some old Superman action comics, just started reading them and spent a couple of hours randomly writing up a take not even knowing what Warner Brothers were doing," he said.
Some time passed and Nolan asked Goyer if he solved the problem with Batman; the screenwriter said that he did not. "What the hell you've been doing?" asked Nolan.
"I don't, know I've been screwing around with this Superman idea," Goyer fired up. Nolan listed to him and agreed to produce the film.
"So I told him and he literally called Jeff Robinov, who's the head of Warner Bros, while I was sitting there and said, 'Jeff, Dave just told me this take on Superman and you need to hear it. I'd like to produce it. Can we come in?' And we went in the next day," Goyer shared with Collider.
The key for the team was to see if they could tell a superhero story but in a world that seemed more "like our own". Goyer hoped that it would have more relevance. He also named Nolan "the protector of Superman" because he was the one to defend him in front of Warner Brothers. Every time they have concerns about how the process was going, Nolan would tell them to leave Goyer alone and let him work.
The award-winning writer also shared a recipe for a blockbuster. Actually, Goyer does not believe one can write a blockbuster, so if you think that you can sit down and write it you're doomed to fail.
Man of Steel, which was released in 2013, is far below The Dark Knight Rises in terms of the box office. Still, the adventure movie starring Henry Cavill ( Superman), Amy Adams (Lois Lane), Michael Shannon (General Zod) and Russel Crow (Jor-El) and Diane Lane (Martha Kent) to name a few earned over 660mn dollars worldwide.