MAN OF STEEL Previewed in Empire Magazine

"After we read the script," she effuses, "we both looked at each other knowing they had really figured out a way to pull this off." - Empire's Ian Nathan on Deborah Snyder, Man of Steel producer

Walk into a Barnes & Noble or any other store with a good selection of imported magazines and you are likely to find the latest issue of Empire.  Published in the UK, it is one of the most popular and well-received movie publications on the market, and even carries the not-so-humble subtitle of "The World's Biggest Movie Magazine."  On the cover of their March issue just happens to be Henry Cavill as Superman, with Man of Steel headlining their 2013 superhero preview.  While the film's more specific details remain somewhat of a secret, their cover story by writer Ian Nathan shed some interesting light on how the film came about and on what we can expect to see this upcoming June.

People looking forward to Man of Steel will be amazed to hear the article's revelation about how the idea and direction for the 200-million dollar film came to fruition: a bout of writer's block.  in 2009, Dark Knight Trilogy collaborators David S. Goyer (story, writer) and director Christopher Nolan began to struggle with developing plot elements of The Dark Knight Rises.  While taking a week-long break, Goyer tried to clear his head by reading old Superman comics, and while doing so, came up with an idea for how to bring the iconic superhero back to the big screen.  Nolan was intrigued upon hearing it, and Warner Brothers (having struggled with Superman film concepts for the entire decade of the 90s and missing the mark on 2006's Superman Returns) greenlit the film for future production.

A few years later, Nolan, with wife and producing partner Emma Thomas, lunched with film director Zack Snyder and his own wife and producing partner, Deborah.  Nolan pitched to Snyder the idea of the film: to show Superman as an alien coming to grips with his purpose and identity, and how the world would react to his presence.  Zack was sold, but Deborah wasn't as initially convinced, perhaps knowing full well the troubled history of trying to return Superman to cinematic relevance.  However, it was the script they received later that changed her mind, as she recounts to Nathan in the quote atop this entry.

Other interesting tidbits from the cover story:

• Goyer claims that the film will have more action than any of the three Nolan-directed Batman films.
• How the film will portray the relationship between Clark Kent and Lois Lane is still unknown, with director Snyder saying that revealing too much of the dynamic would give away "a bit of the DNA" of the film.  Goyer and Cavill also avoid saying much in this regard, other than praising Amy Adams' performance in the role.
• Deborah Snyder on Michael Shannon's villainous performance as General Zod: "The gravitas he brings is incredible."
• In preparation for the role, Cavill relied solely on Superman comics alone, avoiding past film and TV versions of the character in order to give a fresh, unswayed performance in the film.  "I didn't want someone else's representation to confuse me," Cavill tells Nathan.   

       

    

The Big Three of MAN OF STEEL's Creative Team

In counting down these final three months leading to the release of Man of Steel, it is important to first take a look at the key individuals responsible for creating it in the first place.  This "big three" of the movie's production is composed of writer David S. Goyer, producer Christopher Nolan, and director Zack Snyder.

Film and television writer/director/producer David S. Goyer helped develop the story and is solely credited with the screenplay for Man of Steel.  This is far from new territory for Goyer, as he has gradually become one of the most sought-after men in Hollywood for comic book films and other similar adaptations.  His ever-increasing resume in the genre includes having also developed the story arc and written for Christopher Nolan's incredibly successful Dark Knight Trilogy, as well as directing Wesley Snipes in 2004's Blade Trinity and serving as producer and writer of the recent Ghost Rider films starring Nicolas Cage.  Like everyone in Hollywood, he has his hits (the global phenomenon of Nolan's three Batman films) and misses (the critically panned, aforementioned Ghost Rider films) yet his creative services remain unwavering in an era when movies concerning costumed vigilantes and the supernatural are more prominent than ever before.

Goyer's working relationship with Christopher Nolan, as alluded to previously, goes back well before the upcoming Man of Steel.  Around 2003, when Nolan was awarded the task of bringing Batman back to the big screen (and essentially back to cinematic relevance after Batman & Robin sank the original franchise), he admitted that while he had a fondness for the character, he in no way considered himself educated enough in the superhero's extensive lore to do the character justice.  He then turned to Goyer in developing Batman Begins, who admits in the special features of the DVD/Blu-ray release of the film that it had been a lifelong dream to write a Batman film.  The two then co-wrote the screenplay and made a tentative story arc for any potential sequels.  2005's 'Begins was both a critical and financial success (although each of its two sequels would later make its $500 million earnings pale in comparison) and three Nolan-directed films and $2.5 billion in worldwide gross later, Goyer and Nolan have again teamed up to try to bring another iconic costumed character back to silver screen prominence, this time with Batman's own DC Comics colleague, Superman.

Showcasing on film the grandeur of a god among men in the twenty-first century requires a certain ambitious, artistic eye.  Warner Brothers and Nolan have thus enlisted visionary director Zack Snyder, whose more recent past directorial experience includes a remake of Dawn of the Dead, Sucker Punch, as well as adaptations of the famed graphic novels 300 and Watchmen.  While the heavily visual style Snyder brings to his films is often maligned and sometimes deemed as distracting, his creative vision is not to be denied, especially in his ability to blend real-life characters and emotion into worlds that appear to jump right off the pages of comic books or other imaginative works of art.  Snyder hence becomes a very promising choice for director, and it'll be interesting to see more footage of Superman's infinite powers set against the backdrop of a world more grounded in our own reality.         

Welcome to the Countdown!

Hello everyone!  Welcome to the first entry of my blog, in which I will be counting down to the release of the film, Man of Steel.  Flying into the United States on June 14th, 2013, the film is directed by Zach Snyder (300, Watchmen) and stars British actor Henry Cavill as Superman, with a supporting cast that includes Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Russell Crowe as Jor-El, and Michael Shannon as the villainous General Zod.  While not many specifics are known about the plot, we do know that the film will be a modern-day retelling of Superman's fabled origin story, and will show how a young Clark Kent tries to find his place in a world that will likely fear his powers and everything of which he is capable.  In the remaining four months leading up to its release, this blog will cover various aspects of the film, including any and all new footage/trailers released, cast and crew profiles, and other bits of news from various media outlets.

Man of Steel marks a reboot of all previous Superman films, and if successful, will likely span its own set of sequels.  It has a lot riding on its super-powered shoulders, however, given the history of the troubled franchise of years past, a set of four films whose behind-the-scenes turmoil included, but wasn't limited, to fired directors, a consistently divided cast & crew, tens of millions of dollars spent on productions later shelved, and in one case, a knife-drawn restaurant confrontation, a tense situation suffused by none other than Marlon Brando.  2006's Superman Returns was a recent attempt to bring the character back to the screen, but its shaky connection to the previous installments (was quietly marketed to take place after the events of the first two Christopher Reeve-starring films) resulted in a critical disappointment, and ultimately, a failed attempt to reinvigorate the brand.

Man of Steel thus has much to prove in the hopes of kicking off the first promising Superman franchise in over three decades.  At the end of the first full-length trailer (see below), Henry Cavil's Superman explains how his adoptive father, Jonathan Kent, was certain his alien son wouldn't be accepted by a fearful world.  "What do you think?" he then asks someone off-screen, but essentially the audience itself.  So, what do you think, world?  Are you ready for a fresh Superman back on the big screen?  I know I am.