He worked alongside Christopher Nolan on writing theDark Knight trilogy.
And now, hes penned the screenplay for the cinematic Superman reboot,Man Of Steel.
Here, he spared us and our chums at HeyUGuys some time to talk about it.
There aremild spoilers within, if youre looking to seeMan Of Steelcold.
Without further ado…
Youve chosen General Zod as the foe Superman faces in the movie.
Was it the case here that you wanted the threat inMan Of Steelto be alien in origin?
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Yes.
Thats why it always going to be Zod.
Zod represents a link back to Jor-El.
Zod knew Jor-El, was friends with Jor-El.
Where hed say okay, lets do it.
Zods more morally duplicitous in this, and thats not an obvious choice.
To me, that was interesting.
I refer to Zod not as a villain, but as antagonist.
His goals happen to be conflict with Kals.
But if you look at it from Zods perspective, is he doing anything wrong?
Look at what happened with the European settlers in America or Australia.
They displaced and ultimately kind of committed genocide on the indigenous populations.
And those who were against other human beings.
From Zods perspective, hes a hero.
Hes genuinely surprised that Kal doesnt want to go along with the plan.
He doesnt think hes a villain.
A lot of the things that Zod says seem reasonable from his point of view.
A lot of the things that Ras Al Ghul says seem reasonable too.
Its just that hes taken it to this extreme.
You play a lot with the chronology of the story.
Or was the earlier draft far straighter?
The chronology was always in that order.
Batman Beginswas written in a non-linear fashion.
Its the way that Chris and I like to work.
Ive done it in some of the television shows that Ive done, so Flash Forward and other things.
I think it can be very liberating to jump around.
Because I think thats how human beings experience things.
Were constantly aware of our past, and our past is informing decisions in the present.
[Those mild spoilers are in the next question]
As you say, its an origin story.
Appreciating that its a reboot here, was it always going to start at the start again?
They had not seen the Donner films, and they were confused.
It was not lost that the first Donner movie came out around 35 years ago.
I have two sons.
My six year old has seen this movie, but not the Donner one.
So this will be his Superman.
So I think we would have been making a mistake if we assumed that everyone knew the story.
One of the things we were attempting to do was reframe the story and change certain elements.
Obviously we added the fact that Krypton is now more likeBrave New World.
That theyre genetically engineered, a decadent society.
Thats something very new to the canon.
We obviously added the fact that Lois figures out who he is.
There are things that are different.
The fact that the Kryptonians have been here before.
Its always struck me as to how Jor-El knew Earth existed.
The transformation of Lois Lane as a character, certainly on screen, was a bold, welcome move.
Well, I think with Lois shes typically been put across as a damsel in distress.
And were told on comic books, and in television, that shes a hard driving investigative reporter.
So that was one of the elements of the canon that we questioned.
It was interesting: DC Comics was okay with it initially, and Warner Bros took a step back.
I questioned the, and Chris questioned them, and they said its always been that way.
And we said maybe its time to change.
Superman has evolved continually in the comic books over the course of 75 years.
He couldnt even fly for years in the original comic books.
Kryptonite wasnt added until the 60s.
All sorts of things like this.
If a character is going to remain vital, he does have to change with the times.
The world has changed too.
They were having a hard time because they were Jewish.
They wanted to get in to mainstream publishing but they couldnt.
Thats why they, and a lot of Jewish guys, went into comic books.
They couldnt get work in the legitimate press.
It was an immigrant story.
There was a feeling to me that Superman had been preserved in amber by the Donner films.
Which is Norman Rockwell world.
In a strange way, even in the Singer movie, Smallville still had that anachronistic feeling.
And that it wouldnt be Norman Rockwell, it would have been a different world.
He would have been skateboarding.
And that was instructive early on, because it forced us to look at everything in a different prism.
Clarks switch of reference growing up would have been different.
He would have been first in line forPhantom Menace…
Yeah, exactly.
My son sawPhantom Menacebefore he saw the originalStar Wars, and you have to think about these things.
Its been interesting seeing the reviews coming in.
Does that bother you?
We dealt with it withBatmanBegins.
There was some resistance to making some of the changes that we made.
Originally, some people didnt like the new version of the Batmobile.
Are you looking forward to taking that up, because there were Easter eggs everywhere?
Im looking forward to it, but also terrified.
Ill give you two examples.
One, we were able to sidestep the Clark Kent with the glasses issue.
But were not going to be able to sidestep that if we do another movie.
The task is going to be trickier.
So if we were going to do another movie, that might be a year on.
Itd be a very different world.
Previous depictions of Lex Luthor on movie depict him as a bit bumbling.
Hes probably a multi, multi billionaire.
Hes not a crook.
With the Batman films, were they easier when youd set up the world?
No, it was harder.
It was harder with Batman because its harder to top yourself.
you’re free to tell the origin story, but then what?
So you dont have to deal with the broader geo-political issues of the world.
Now Gotham police force are aware of him.
Now he has to interact with Gordon.
Now he has to risk people finding out his secret.
Each movie becomes harder and harder.
One last thing, then.
Are you keen to direct a movie again?
Ive been directing mostly pilots of late.
BELOW IS THEHEAVIER-SPOILER PARTOF THE INTERVIEW, THAT WEVE SEPARATED OUT.DONT READ IF YOUVE NOT SEENMAN OF STEELYET!
What was your thinking there?
And he flies out of the Fortress in a Superman costume.
And so this story was why does he become Superman?
And we decided early on thats not a choice he makes, but a choice thats imposed on him.
The world is just assimilating to the fact that he even exists.
We just pushed that problem down the line.
Almost Clark Kent Begins then?
Some people have called this movie Superman Begins, and I guess it is.
Looking at the angle youve taken withMan Of Steel, the movies effectively about Kal-El?
Yeah, it is.
Hes only Clark when hes in Smallville.
Most of the time hes Kal,and thats very intentional.
If you have your Kryptonian world, humanity is going to suffer.
He has to decide which world he wants to plant his feet in.
The whole raison detre of the movie is that choice.
Its nature versus nurture.
And thats why he puts on the glasses and becomes officially Clark Kent at the end of the movie.
David S Goyer, thank you very much.
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