Geoff Boucher of L.A. Times‘ Hero Complex had a chance to visit Christopher Nolan in the editing suite for his upcoming sci-fi thriller Inception, and of course, he couldn’t pass up an opportunity like that without asking about Nolan’s plans for his Superman reboot and Batman.
There was a lot of excitement a few months back when Nolan’s name was mentioned as the “godfather” of a Superman reboot at Warner Bros., and speaking on the decision for the first time, Nolan told Boucher that his involvement with the Superman franchise came about from them having reached an impasse on what to do with their third Batman film and David Goyer having an idea of what could be done with the Man of Steel:
“He basically told me, ‘I have this thought about how you would approach Superman. I immediately got it, loved it and thought: That is a way of approaching the story I’ve never seen before that makes it incredibly exciting. I wanted to get Emma and I involved in shepherding the project right away and getting it to the studio and getting it going in an exciting way.
As mentioned previously, Nolan would act as a producer for another director, which has yet to be determined as they develop the script. From there, Nolan’s involvement may be similar to Peter Jackson’s on District 9 as he moves onto the third Batman film. He didn’t have a lot more to say about the Superman reboot except that he did have an appreciation for what Singer tried to do in connecting his film to those of Richard Donner:
“A lot of people have approached Superman in a lot of different ways. I only know the way that has worked for us that’s what I know how to do.”
It’s suggested that like his two Batman movies, the Superman story will take place in a world where Superman is the only superhero, so one probably can’t expect this Superman to meet Christian Bale’s Batman or either character to be involved with a future Justice League movie.
“Each serves to the internal logic of the story. They have nothing to do with each other,” Nolan told them.
Eventually, the Nolans and Goyer got over the earlier impasse with a second Batman sequel, and things are certainly moving forward on that third movie. Nolan wouldn’t confirm any of the dozens of internet rumors about who might play the villain but he did say:
“Without getting into specifics, the key thing that makes the third film a great possibility for us is that we want to finish our story, and in viewing it as the finishing of a story rather than infinitely blowing up the balloon and expanding the story. We have a great ensemble, that’s one of the attractions of doing another film, since we’ve been having a great time for years.”
You can read the entire story over at the Hero Complex.