Nolan To Bring Justice To DC Superheroes
Fri, June 8, 2012 
Legal deadlines looming, indecision in the air and desperation setting in, Warner Brothers turned to Christopher Nolan to get them out of their Superman cinematic rut, having done so spectacularly for Batman (Tickets on The Dark Knight Rises officially go up this Monday at midnight – go ahead and start the coffee and get ready to pound F5 all morning if you want those midnight IMAX tickets!) You remember all that "Godfather" talk, nothing more than a sexy, headline making way of saying he was producing. In agreeing to taking the preverbal training wheels off the bike and letting the Last Son of Krypton rides all bys himself to the silver screen, the British director got unrelinquished final say on all things truth, justice and the American way resulting in hiring of Zack Snyder and casting Henry Cavill for The Man of Steel.
Variety reports the experience of playing cinematic god to DC's top dog superheroes isn't the end for Nolan. WB's handing more power to Nolan to work in the same capacity to other properties. This comes two days after the studio announced Will Beall, behind the "Eh" looking Gangster Squad, will pen Justice League (Who wants to guess this will be a glorified spinning the wheels of what George Miller was going to do for Justice League: Mortal?)
My pal Sean Gerber of Modern Myth Media and I were bullshitting recently about whether general audiences are fully aware of Nolan as they are with filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, George Lucas or James Cameron. Is he a house-hold name and/or a brand of director people recognize like they would for Coca-Cola or Hershey's (an argument my best friend has made to support the general public's trust in Pixar)? He's adamant they do. He's getting here, I think. Just not "there" yet. But he will.
He did wonders for the World's Greatest Detective and we hear everyone around the Burbank water-coolers is chipper on how Superman is turning out. The thought of him bogging down his time on damn-near WB/DC wants out, on the other hand. It starts to lose any meaning to say, "Hey, it must be good if Chris Nolan is involved!"
Most importantly, that takes away from valuable time Nolan can spend on making his own original films. You know...like Inception.
Reader Comments (1)
I agree (and kind of hope) that they may well go back to (hopefully) the initial script for JLM and retool it. That would certainly be the fastest way to get this done. I think having Nolan guide these films could be a good thing, as long as he lets each character be what they are, and not "Batman knock-offs" (and judging by his hands-off attitude with MOS, he will allow them to do just that). However I do share your dread/disgust/trepidation that this will take away from his ability to make great original films. I loved both Inception and the Prestige and would love to see more Nolan films in this vein. Perhaps he will be able to make time for these as well. I guess we'll see.