Having topped the U.S. box office this past weekend with his latest film Noah, director Darren Aronofsky has been doing the press rounds in promotion of the Biblical epic, and during a chat with MTV the subject of comic book movies was brought up. As we know, Aronofsky came close to rebooting the Batman franchise in the early 2000s with an adaptation of Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One, while he was also set to link up with The Fountain star Hugh Jackman for last year’s The Wolverine.
Well, it turns out those weren’t the only two superhero movies that could have had Aronofsky’s name on the credits, with the director revealing to Josh Horowitz that he held “a few conversations” with Warner Bros. and producer Christopher Nolan about helming last year’s Superman reboot Man of Steel, and that he would have “absolutely” taken the job under the right circumstances.
“Superman’s one of the holy grails. It’s Superman. It’s the best superhero. Batman is great, of course, but it’s Superman. He’s the same level. That possibility was great,” said Aronofsky, before reflecting on the final product from Zack Snyder: “I thought Zack was a great choice, and I loved his Watchmen movie. I thought [Man of Steel] was great. I thought that as a fan of the comic, you couldn’t hope for a better interpretation. I liked the orthodoxy of it. It was interesting to add the pathos that they put into the character. It’s a hard one to do. You look at what Christopher Reeve did, and it was perfect, because it captured that ‘good old boy’ thing. But to try and redo that again and bring that for a modern audience is tough in a post-Batman and Wolverine world. It’s hard to do that.”
Would you have liked to see Aronofsky’s version of Man of Steel? Let us know your thoughts…
Originally published March 31, 2014. Updated November 28, 2022.
