Zack Snyder’s Man Of Steel was almost part of The Dark Knight-iverse
When Zack Snyder abruptly received the keys to the castle at D.C. following a series of box office disappointments, it felt like a weird pick. D.C. and Warner Bros. had such a seismic phenomenon in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy that, for many, the hiring was step down. It was strange to hand the Batmobile over to the guy coming off Watchmen and heading into Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole. But that’s what happened. Snyder’s first challenge was a Superman reboot that would hopefully instill the same gravitas and real-world heft that Nolan brought to Batman. Christopher Nolan would stay on as a producer and nabbed a story by credit, so many thought he would be, not so much steering the ship, but at the very least finessing it.
However, it was also clear that this would not exist within the same world as Nolan’s Batman movies. Even though Man Of Steel took on similar qualities, including a title that eschews the hero’s actual name and uses one of their many nicknames instead, the movie would be the start of something new. It wasn’t always that way it would appear.
Speaking with MTV’s Josh Horowitz on Happy Sad Confused podcast, Snyder, who’s been on a tear recently in regards to headline-grabbing comments, told Horowitz that setting Man Of Steel in the Dark Knight world wasn’t “100 percent off the table.”
“We did talk about it a little bit. The whole thing is that I think it’s difficult,” Snyder said.
Of course, that never ended up happening primarily due, apparently, to the ending of The Dark Knight Rises, according to Snyder. Rises famously ends with Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Robin “John” Blake taking on the cape and cowl and becoming Batman. Snyder suggests that the fan disappointment of Joseph Gordon-Levitt answering his own questions about whether or not Superman bleeds would’ve been even greater than that time Superman snapped General Zod’s neck.
“Maybe that’s why we didn’t do it,” said Snyder. “It would have been Joseph. Which could have been cool.”
Would it have? Hard to say because Nolan decided to put the kibosh on letting his generation-defining series of Batman movies get wrapped up in Snyder’s gods-run-amok version of the D.C. universe.
“I don’t blame [Nolan]. I like that his thing doesn’t get muddied by these other touches.”
Of course, it doesn’t. Snyder cast Ben Affleck in the CrossFit-obsessed Bruce Wayne role, and now we have the Snyder Cut. They should remake Sliding Doors about the Nolan-Snyder Dark Knight cinematic universe.
[via The Hollywood Reporter]