Before Zack Snyder was tapped to direct DC’s Man of Steel, The Dark Knight’s Christopher Nolan met with Tony Scott about helming the Superman movie.
Speaking with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, per ComicBook.com, Man of Steel writer David Goyer revealed Nolan met with Scott to discuss potentially directing the Henry Cavill-starring superhero flick.
“It was a very deliberative process,” Goyer said. “Chris met with I want to say about five directors and it came down to Zack and another director, and it felt like Zack was the right call. I think Zack was the right call. It was really exciting, the fact that Zack wanted to shoot that movie handheld, which was I thought a brilliant idea. What’s interesting in the Elseworlds version of what could have been is, Chris had already met with Tony Scott, so there’s a version of a Tony Scott Man of Steel in some parallel universe. I think Tony Scott doesn’t get as much credit as he should be given, because he was an equally phenomenal director as his brother [Ridley Scott], and that’s a movie I would have liked to have seen.”
The filmography of Tony Scott
Scott, who passed away in 2012, made his first theatrical movie, The Hunger, in 1983. He went on to direct 1986’s Top Gun, 1987’s Beverly Hills Cop II, 1990’s Days of Thunder, and 1993’s True Romance.
During the latter half of his career, Scott regularly collaborated with Denzel Washington, as they made 1995’s Crimson Tide, 2004’s Man on Fire, 2006’s Deja Vu, 2009’s The Taking of Pelham 123, and 2010’s Unstoppable. Additional titles he directed include 1998’s Enemy of the State, 2001’s Spy Game, 2005’s Domino, and more.
Snyder ultimately ended up getting the gig, while Nolan served as a producer on the 2013 film. Snyder went on to direct 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, 2017’s Justice League, and 2021’s Zack Snyder’s Justice League for DC, while his next movie, Rebel Moon, hits Netflix on December 22, 2023.
