We reported yesterday that Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel was going to need to do big box office business in order for Warner Bros. to greenlight Justice League. But before we get to that decision Snyder, Henry Cavill and writer David S. Goyer sat down to discuss Superman’s return to the big screen and the relationship will we see between The Last Son of Krypton and Lois Lane.
In an interview with Empire Snyder said, “That is hard to answer, that gives a bit of the DNA of the movie away. Suffice to say, whether it is Superman or Kal-El or Clark Kent, we wanted to make him cooler. You’ll have to wait and see the why of it. [Amy Adams] is everything you would hope for from Lois Lane.”
In the same interview, Henry Cavill also remained tight lipped about one of comics most iconic relationships: “I can’t talk about that too much. I don’t want to be giving away the idea of the film too early, but Amy is a great actress, very professional, a pleasure to work with.” He also addressed some of the concerns that fans have had about the film’s tone: “It’s not a dark movie by any means. Past representations of the character have been quite light… This is a more realistic view of the character, while still maintaining the very unrealistic, or potentially unrealistic features of an alien with superpowers.” He also added that the movie will feature more action than Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight movies.
Also taking part in the interview was writer David S. Goyer, who talked about how they plan to tackle the Man of Steel: “We’re approaching Superman as if it weren’t a comic book movie, as if it were real.”
While he didn’t write Man of Steel as a comic book movie, Goyer is very appreciative of the movies that came before it, “I adore the Donner films. Absolutely adore them. It just struck me that there was an idealist quality to them that may or may not work with today’s audience. It just struck me that if Superman really existed in the world, first of all this story would be a story about first contact”. He continues, “he’s an alien. You can easily imagine a scenario in which we’d be doing a film like E.T., as opposed to him running around in tights. If the world found out he existed, it would be the biggest thing that ever happened in human history. It falls into that idea of trying to humanize the inhuman. He’s made out of steel, he’s not made out of flesh, metaphorically speaking. We are portraying him as a man, yet he’s not a man.”
Finally, he compared the differences of writing Batman and Superman, “It is obviously a much longer process with a character like Superman. It is much easier to do a realistic take on Batman. You know nothing can hurt Superman, presumably other than Kryptonite. The challenge was simply: can we figure out a way to make those elements work, quote unquote, in the real world? It’s very much a story of a man with two fathers.”
Man of Steel also features Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Russell Crowe as Jor-El, Michael Shannon as General Zod, Diane Lane as Martha Kent, Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent and Lawrence Fishburne as Perry White.
Originally published January 30, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
