It looks like from here on in we’re going to have to deal with a stupid new “Superman: The Man Of Steel” rumor almost every day. Hopefully Warner/Legendary Pictures will announce a new director and lead if only just to shut up these ridiculous reports. Maybe at ComicCon, just for our sake?
“Inception” is finished and on the starting blocks, which means Christopher Nolan’s full attention is being turned to his pair of D.C. Comics adaptations. Things are still relatively quiet on the “Batman 3” front (aside from people losing their shit over dumb domain names and this seemingly silly gossip), but last week already saw the ludicrous rumor that Chris Columbus was set to direct “Superman,” and now we’ve got another one to add to the pile.
Geek Tyrant are reporting that Jonathan Nolan, brother of Chris and co-writer of “The Prestige” and “The Dark Knight,” has been sitting in the director’s chair of “Superman” for months, working on “pre-development stuff.” This isn’t the first time this rumor’s appeared, but it was pretty much discredited back then, and there’s no reason to believe that it’s any more true now.
For one, Chris Nolan had to make “Following,” “Memento,” and “Insomnia” before the studio would let him even attempt to show some franchise mettle and the director even admitted himself he needed more experience under his belt before he could finally realize the blockbuster-budget of “Inception.”
Meanwhile, the younger Nolan has never directed a movie of any kind, and handing over a key franchise with a $200-plus million budget would be unprecedented. Geek Tyrant suggest that his elder brother might play a shepherding role, but with “Batman 3” set for a Summer 2012 release and “Superman” following a mere six months afterward, we can’t imagine C. Nolan would have the time to hold his brother’s hand through his first shoot.
That’s not to mention the fact that J. Nolan has been “hard at work” on the script for “Batman 3,” alongside co-story writer David S. Goyer (who’s also writing “Superman”) since February. So where have they found the time to get “Superman” towards pre-production, and still get the ‘Dark Knight’ script into shape, exactly? Does Jonathan Nolan have a secret twin, like Christian Bale in “The Prestige?” Sure, Marc Webb was given the “Spider-Man” reboot rather quickly, after only one feature film (“500 Days Of Summer”) and countless music videos, but that’s still years more experience than the young Nolan has.
The slightly more theoretically plausible side of the rumor is that auditions have begun for the project, and that Zachary Levi, the star of NBC’s spy series “Chuck,” is in the running. Levi wouldn’t be a horrible choice, and it’s certainly feasible that he’d be up for the part, except that we’d be surprised if casting was already underway, and as the rumor comes from the same source as the Jonathan-Nolan-will-direct report, we’re pretty sure this one isn’t true either, and that both are the result of an overenthusiastic fan. Time to spin the wheel of casting rumors again, internet!