Cinefantastique Online

Ain’t It Cool News features a Q & A from Geoff Boucher’s L.A. Times Hero Complex Film Festival with Christopher Nolan, where the director’s INSOMNIA and THE DARK KNIGHT were screened.

As Nolan’s films tend to be dark, and about ‘haunted’ protagonists, why did he choose to produce a Superman film, a character often viewed as a very bright & pure figure?

His answer:

“…It’s something I’m doing as a producer. Obviously, I’m not directing it, but my involvement in it is quite specific.
While David Goyer and myself were wrestling with the story for another Batman film as we got stuck he said to me, kind of out of the blue one day, that he had a great idea for how to take on Superman.
I thought it was terrific and I just felt like I didn’t want it to not get done, so I went to the studio and said, ‘Let’s have a crack at this.’ That’s the nature of my involvement.”

Nolan further revealed that he found Richard Donner’s SUPERMAN inspirational; putting an fantasy heroic figure into a realistic setting.

“I literally pitched the studio my take on Batman by saying I wanted to make the Batman film that had never been made in 1978 or 1979.”