For a guy who’s not actually attached to direct the next Superman movie (whatever that will be) Ninja Assassin director James McTeigue has been talking about it quite a lot recently. This is most likely because he’s been asked about it, as rumours were swirling around that Warner Bros. were eyeing him up to direct. In August he shared his vision on what he would do with the caped one if he came on-board to direct, and now he has told FirstShowing that some discussions have taken place.
I asked James if there was any truth to that rumor that he, or the Wachowskis, might be involved in another movie. His answer started out short and sweet: “Maybe some truth to… I’ve had some discussions, the Wachowskis to a lesser degree, but the Superman franchise is in a strange kind of place at the moment,” McTeigue revealed. “I think they’re still trying to work out the mechanics of how that can come together.”
“I think I would be interested in doing it if they let me do it the way I wanted to do it. I would say that, if you take the Richard Donner Supermans and the last Superman [from Bryan Singer], I think that Superman is probably ripe for a bit of a change up. I think society has changed around the core idea of what Superman was.”
“And I’m not saying you do the ubiquitous dark Superman, I’m not saying that… I’m just saying that I think there are some things that you could excise from the Superman mythology that people would get into it, if you took the world that he was in and changed that a bit, and maybe even project that into the future a bit. I think you don’t really have to play into the origin story anymore. I think there’s a whole bunch of things you could do to make that film more alive and exciting again.”
Last month head of DC Entertainment, Diane Nelson, said that no work on a new Superman movie is currently taking place, although Ninja Assassin will be released next month and if that become a hit then Warner Bros. may want to have more discussions with Mr. McTeigue.
