It was rumoured for a while that Mad Max: Fury Road director George Miller was going to direct Man of Steel 2. Since then the director has announced he won’t be working with Henry Cavill, but that didn’t stop him talking about Superman and what he could have done with the character for Man of Steel 2 and his aborted Justice League movie.
“I think it’s been said many times before: he’s potentially a very boring character because he has no faults, so you really have to find his demons really to get an internal conflict going. You’ve really got to do that,” he told IGN. “Whether that’s by an external agency or something deep inside himself. You need that conflicted character. That’s what made the Greek gods so great. I mean they were jealous, vengeful, hubristic. They had all these things going for them. I think that’s why Batman’s such an interesting character because he’s human, so he’s just like us. He’s relatable, rather than someone who’s just perfect.”
Miller was set to direct the Man of Steel in his cancelled Justice League: Mortal movie (which is getting its own documentary), but would he have used the practical effects that made Mad Max: Fury Road so spectacular for Superman? “Clearly we weren’t going to fly Superman and Wonder Woman on wires, they were going to be CG, but again you’re working your butt off to make it not look like CG,” he said. “Ken Ralston – who’s a great, great visual effects artist – was going to be doing a lot of that. The WETA stuff at that point was mainly in the practical costumes and the effects.”
The director did take the time to reiterate that he’s not directing Man of Steel 2 as was previously rumoured. “I’ll basically say no,” he admitted. “Sorry again, not trying to be coy about it. You have so many things lined up. You just don’t know which one’s going to break. The next film I want to do won’t be a Mad Max film. It’ll be a small film. I just want to get away from big action films for a while. But I just can’t help myself. I like to do things which are technically not challenging but technically interesting.”
Originally published October 8, 2015. Updated March 1, 2020.
