By: Russ Burlingame on October 2, 2012
In an interview with the Italian movie website Bad Taste, Man of Steel co-writer David Goyer (who also worked on the Blade, Dark Knight and Ghost Rider movies) confirmed that Zack Snyder’s version of Superman will be more realistic and naturalistic, inspired by Christopher Nolan’s beloved Batman films.
“What Christopher Nolan and I have done with Superman is trying to bring the same naturalistic approach that we used adopted for the Batman trilogy,” Goyer said. “We always had a naturalistic approach, we want out stories to be rooted in reality, like they could happen in the same world we live in. It’s not that easy with Superman, and actually this doesn’t necessarily mean we will make a dark movie. But working on this reboot we are thinking about what would happen if a story like this one actually happened. How would people react to this? What impact would have the presence of Superman in the real world? What I really like to do is writing “genre” stories without a cartoonish element.”
What impact would Superman have in the real world? That sounds like a question best asked by Alan Moore in Watchmen, a series that was adapted into a major motion picture in 2009–by Man of Steel director Snyder.
That said, this may concern some fans. While the Nolan Batman films are almost universally beloved, Superman has always seemed most successful and interesting when he embraced the tropes of the genre, rather than running away from them. There’s already been some concern that Man of Steel might stand for a lot of the same things that Superman has railed against in fan-favorite stories like Kingdom Come and “What’s So Funny ‘Bout Truth, Justice and the American Way?”.
We’ll all find out in June.
