In the last two weeks we were subjected to some news regarding director Christopher Nolan and what was reported to be his involvement in another Batman film, rounding out his trilogy, and more interestingly, his involvement in the next Superman feature.
This news was epic for a lot of reasons, but mainly as it potentially laid down the beginnings of what would be a foundation for the DC Universe coming to silver screens in full force, much like it currently does over at Marvel Studios.
If Nolan was involved in the Superman project, that would mean he was no longer interested only in his Batman universe and keeping it isolated. With Green Lantern coming out, at Batman 3 and a Superman reboot could throw out some cross-over opportunities that could lead into more character films and what everyone wants to see, a Justice League film.
Unfortunately for comic and movie fans everywhere, the new DC President Diane Nelson denied the rumors. MTV News spoke with Nelson recently and this is what she had to say about the Nolan involvement with Superman rumors:
“Wouldn’t you like to know!… We don’t have any plans about that, and as I’ve mentioned, in the coming months we’ll be making a lot of announcements about what our content plans will be,” she added. “But right now, that’s nothing but rumor — and we frankly don’t say a whole lot more about rumor than that, so…”
While not exactly a flat out denial, it does put a damper on the hype generated by that news. The good part here is that she indicates that we’ll be hearing a lot more news in the coming months so hopefully that also means we’ll see some confirmations on what projects are next to be developed at DC Entertainment and maybe we’ll get to see some new stuff at Comic-Con this summer.
With David Goyer working on the script to Batman 3, don’t be surprised if one of those announcements pertains to Christopher Nolan rounding off his Bat-trilogy. We know his tendency is to make room for his passion projects between that Batman movies as we saw with The Prestige after Batman Begins and now with Inception after The Dark Knight. If the pattern is exactly that, Nolan should be prepping for Batman 3 in the near future.
The other rumor out there regarding Batman 3 is that it’ll likely feature The Riddler as the villain and may introduce the character of Dick Grayson. Join in our our Ridder & Robin discussion for more.
Continue to part 2 for more on Watchmen 2!
Watchmen 2 Not Happening
Another major rumor popping up recently regarding DC and Warner Bros. is the news that they may be interested in pushing for a sequel to Watchmen. While this this seemed unlikely to some and not a good thing for those of us who love the original for what it is as a standalone story, there was evidence explaining how this could be.
Adding to the reports denying this could happen though, we have yet another denial, this time from DC President Diane Nelson:
“No, that’s all rumor… I’m not sure where it came from. We’ll be looking closely at our whole library and making sure we’re looking for opportunities to mine every property where it makes sense, and with integrity, but that’s just rumor… No, there are no plans to do that”
This is a much stronger denial than the Chris Nolan-Superman thing but the interesting part here is when she says “with integrity” which tells me she understands that making another Watchmen goes straight against the wishes of its creators. Don’t count on another Watchmen movie happening just yet as we already know director Zack Snyder and the cast will likely have no part of it.
That being said, she is open to mining “every property” if there’s money to be made. If another book is made as a prequel, sequel or spin-off to Watchmen against Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ wishes at some point in the future, as our own Kofi Outlaw points out, a movie wouldn’t be out of the question to follow.The now well-known name/brand, the success of having been the great selling graphic novel of all time, and a movie that performed decent but was loved by geeks are something that can easily be taken advantage of from a business perspective.
Would your curiosity take the better of you if Watchmen 2 became a reality? Is Diane Nelson hiding something about Christopher Nolan and what DC movie news do you expect to hear in the coming months?
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The one DC Entertainment flick we can count on, Green Lantern, opens June 17, 2011. Director Martin Campbell and his award-winning crew get to work on it next month.
