In addition to opening up about Star Wars, David S. Goyer explains why Man of Steel 2 didn’t happen.
Following Man of Steel opening big back in 2013, there was immediate talk of a sequel; however, the box office ended up petering out due to criticisms surrounding the movie.
Speaking on the Happy, Sad, and Confused Podcast, Goyer says the reason Man of Steel 2 didn’t happen is because the execs at the time wanted a similar DC universe to the popular MCU.
“I know the pressure we were getting from Warner Bros., which was, ‘We need our MCU! We need our MCU!’ And I was like let’s not run before we walk,” Goyer said. “The other thing that was difficult at the time was there was this revolving door of executives at Warner Bros. and DC. Every 18 months someone new would come in. We were just getting whiplash. Every new person was like, ‘We’re going to go bigger!’”
Goyer continues with mention that projects were being pitched like crazy, but actually similar to what James Gunn is doing with the new DCU, says you can’t build a house without a foundation, as Gunn has said scripts need to be finished first.
“I remember at one point the person running Warner Bros. at the time had this release that pitched the next 20 movies over the next 10 years. But none of them had been written yet! It was crazy how much architecture was being built on air… This is not how you build a house,” he said.
What happened with DC?
Things I’ve been told about DC back then include that recently I was told Matt Reeves was actually up to take over DC following the Batman Dark Knight movies, but it was Christopher Nolan who chose Zack Snyder to take over DC.
Early on, Zack also said his Superman was going to be its own thing, separate from a different Justice League movie featuring a different Superman. So originally, that means they were going to go with two Superman actors on screen, one in a Justice League universe, and one separate, a part of the Zack Snyder Superman movies.
What ended up happening, according to what I am told, is that they decided to do a shared Justice League universe with Zack Snyder at the helm.
The original plan was to have Henry Cavill spearhead a DC shared universe, with Man of Steel leading the way (if you doubt that, then question why they didn’t go with the original plan of Zack’s Superman being separate?).
So, again from what I have been told, those at the time wanted Man of Steel to hit a billion dollars at the box office, which followed Nolan’s billion-dollar Dark Knight movies, and Nolan was also executive producing Man of Steel and best friends with Snyder.
If Man of Steel would have hit a billion, Man of Steel 2 would have happened, in addition to a solo Batman movie.
What was that Batman movie called? The Batman.
What was it about? A Batman in his second year of being a hero.
Who was the star? They were looking at a pretty boy type of actor, actually a “horror” actor. I was told they wanted Tyler Hoechlin as the Batman to Henry Cavill’s Superman who starred in Teen Wolf.
Sound familiar? Matt Reeves, again I was told who wanted to take over DC at the time, ended up doing The Batman with vampire actor Robert Pattinson a decade later.
What happened to Hoechlin? They didn’t forget about him. He became their choice of Superman on TV.
So Man of Steel 2 was supposed to happen, The Batman was supposed to happen, and solo movies for The Flash, Wonder Woman, etc. There was even talk of doing Green Lantern 2 with Ryan Reynolds.
All this was going to lead to a Justice League movie.
Man of Steel fails to deliver
But once Man of Steel didn’t hit a billion dollars at the box office, that’s when things went majorly south.
Man of Steel 2 was scrapped and WB quickly announced Batman vs. Superman with Ben Affleck in the role of the new Dark Knight who was also developing his own version of The Batman movie featuring Joe Manganiello as Deathstroke.
Snyder was given the green light to do Batman vs. Superman and filmed his version of Justice League at the same time.
Well, Batman vs. Superman also went south, which led to the Justice League debacle, Affleck deciding not to do his Batman movie due to major problems at WB, the Henry Cavill mustache fiasco, Whedon’s Justice League, etc.
Zack departed DC due to family issues, but eventually returned at the request of WB to finish his Justice League for HBO Max content.
Goyer is right, all the while, WB and DC went through major changes.
I recall being told back then that Jeff Robinov hated Superman and loved Batman. During Robinov’s run is when Nolan’s Dark Knight movies were made, and from what I understand, why no new Superman following Superman Returns. Robinov left WB when Man of Steel was released.
Other drama, from my understanding, includes WB and DC films butting heads with the comic book people, particularly Geoff Johns.
I believe Johns wanted to keep the DC films universe closer to the comics, closer to his comics, but Nolan and Snyder wanted to do their own take.
I was recently told how Nolan had to override Johns in regards to Snyder wanting to go with Jason Momoa as Aquaman, a more diverse version, but Johns wanted to stick with his version which he was writing as part of the New 52.
Then I was told the plan was to have J.J. Abrams, Matt Reeves and James Gunn reboot the DCEU.
Abrams was supposed to reboot Superman and Green Lantern, but I think the failure of Disney Star Wars movies might have put the kibosh on that, in addition the leadership changes at WB.
We now see that, again, Matt Reeves got to do his Batman movie, and now James Gunn is indeed rebooting the DC films universe, with the DCU.
I’ve been told Abrams’ Black Superman movie is no longer happening.
However, all wasn’t supposed to be lost with the Snyder Verse.
Though Zack and Affleck went through a lot of shit at WB, and Nolan left, there are/were those who still love Snyder and Affleck.
So as I went over in my report, Mike DeLuca was going to bring Ben Affleck back as Batman, which is why you were hearing about all those Affleck Batman cameos in The Flash and Aquaman 2.
Originally, The Flash was supposed to be released following Aquaman 2.
The plan was to bring back Ben Affleck as Batman following The Flash in his own movie, with plans to bring back Zack Snyder if he wanted to, with Dwayne Johnson involved as Batman Adam, and which is of course why we all heard about Henry Cavill back as Superman in Man of Steel 2, which was going to feature Supergirl and Brainiac.
WB ended up getting sold to Discovery, David Zaslav took over, WB is broke AF, and Zaslav told Gunn to reboot DC with cheaper talent.
I’m also told that Zaslav has plans to sell WB to Comcast, which owns NBC/Universal, which interestingly enough is where Snyder and Gunn did Day of the Dead.
Gunn is now going with Superman: Legacy to launch his DC shared universe.
