Comforting news has emanated from the Superman camp this week as director
Zack Snyder (who must be having some sleepless nights over how Sucker Punch is going to perform next week) has told
The LA Times that he's looked closely at Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins as a source of inspiration for the Man of Steel's forthcoming cinematic reboot. Also, refreshingly, unlike Bryan Singer's Superman Returns, the movie won't be influenced by any previous adaptation of Superman on the big screen. Snyder said candidly;
Literally, the one thing that everyone can start to think about is that we're making a movie that finally goes with the approach that there's been no other Superman movies. If you look at 'Batman Begins,' there's that structure, there's the canon that we know about and respect, but on other hand there's this approach that pre-supposes that there haven't been any other movies. In every aspect of design and of story, the whole thing is very much from that perspective of respect the canon but don't be a slave to the movies.
It is beneficial to the project, then, that Nolan is overseeing its development as producer, and Snyder appears to be grateful of his creative guidance;
Chris is awesome. He's super-respectful but super-helpful, too. You can't imagine a more generous ," Snyder said. "Once he sort of got what I want to do with it, he was like, 'OK,' and once he said, 'You know what, that's awesome,' now he's 100 percent. If I say, 'What do you think of this?' he's like, 'That's awesome,' and then there's a great give-and-take about it, a great conversation that we can have about it and making it better every day.
We already know that Nolan is more than adept at re-engineering a stagnant film franchise, with Batman Begins ending a 8 year absence from the big screen for the caped crusader, after the disastrous Batman and Robin painted a seemingly indelible black mark across the name of DC Comics' most revered export. Hopefully his ear for a good yarn combined with Snyder's keen artistic vision will lead to this being the next great comic book adaptation of our generation. It's certainly got all the potential. 'The Man of Steel', as is its working title, has yet to begin shooting, but has already been touted for a December 2012 release. However, Snyder has stated that he will release an image of
Henry Cavill in the iconic red 'n' blue suit before said shooting, in a bid to prevent disappointing paparazzi snaps of it, a la The Amazing Spider-Man. We've already got a good mock-up of what he might look like in the suit below...
