His thinking changed when he looked at Superman in his earliest incarnation, written and illustrated by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in the late 1930s.
“I used to imagine that I was Batman,” Mr. Goyer grew up admiring the Norman Rockwell-esque charm of the 1978 “Superman” movie, directed by Richard Donner and starring Christopher Reeve, he never felt much connection to its hero. Goyer when they first conceived of “Man of Steel” while puzzling over the plot of “The Dark Knight Rises.” This was the same conclusion reached by Christopher Nolan, the director whose hit “Dark Knight” films have modernized Batman for the paranoid post-Sept. “If you follow him back logically and try to understand him,” he said, “you end up at a sci-fi solution.” Snyder said this approach was built into the DNA of the character. The result is an unapologetic science-fiction spin on Superman, and while that may shatter audiences’ expectations for pure, unalloyed realism in “Man of Steel,” Mr. The film also emphasizes the world of Krypton before its annihilation - a bleak, utilitarian planet with sophisticated if downright creepy technology - and the treachery of the Kryptonian villain Zod ( Michael Shannon), who finds Kal-El on earth.
#MAN OF STEEL YOUNG CLARK MOVIE#
It is strange that Superman, the smiling, soaring Moses-Jesus hybrid who ushered in the era of superhero comics, should be struggling at the multiplexes in an age when every other studio movie seems to feature a man in a cape, a mask with pointy bat-ears or a high-tech suit of iron. Audiences seem to want him to be grounded, at the same time that they want to believe he can fly. But it is being built on the back of a character who, for as often as writers and filmmakers have lately tried to reinvent him, has proved particularly unsusceptible to attempts to make him more relatable. Yes, “Man of Steel” is the latest effort to rejuvenate a decades-old pop-culture franchise and, in doing so, renew both the fortunes of Warner Brothers as it searches for new blockbusters and the career of Mr. Snyder, a director of comic-book adaptations like “Watchmen” and “300,” and his colleagues have been clinging to as they finish work on “Man of Steel,” an entrant in the crowded summer-movie arms race more than two years and $175 million or more in the making. Snyder’s wife and producing partner, had to correct him on one fundamental detail they had updated for “Man of Steel.” “It’s not an S,” she said with a laugh. What his film tries to do, he said, is “respect the S.”Īt this point, Deborah Snyder, Mr. Snyder said here a few weeks ago, “put him in jeans and a T-shirt or a leather jacket with an S on it, I go: ‘What? Guys, it’s O.K. Snyder, the director of “Man of Steel,” a new Superman movie that Warner Brothers will release on June 14, modern-day interpretations of this DC Comics superhero had been apologizing for the outdatedness of his origins they sought to conceal him in contemporary trappings instead of embracing an essential mythology that, he said, was as bulletproof as the character himself.
#MAN OF STEEL YOUNG CLARK SERIES#
In a dimly lighted editing suite here on the Warner Brothers lot, blinds drawn for maximum secrecy and walls decorated with signs and posters celebrating “Star Wars,” Indiana Jones and “Game of Thrones,” Zack Snyder was discussing his philosophy on the totemic character who arguably gave rise to every fantasy series of the last 75 years: Superman.įor too long, said Mr.