Zack Snyder is directing Superman reboot Man Of Steel for Warner Brothers but, judging from the trade announcement of Russell Crowe's casting, you'd be hard pressed to know it.
Major announcements in the trade papers are carefully managed affairs, put together by teams of publicists and executives to shape a message for the masses. Nothing at all appears - or fails to appear - in these stories by accident. And it is quite clear from the official Crowe casting announcement in Variety that the name Warner Brothers want people to associate with Man Of Steel in not Zack Snyder but Christopher Nolan.
The piece opens like this:
Now, I don't want to minimize Nolan's involvement - he has been around on this right from the beginning - but the simple fact is that he's not directing it. Snyder is. And Nolan, frankly, absolutely will not be able to be hands on during production because he's got a big hero movie of his own in production right now. And if you go back to the casting announcements for Henry Cavill and other key cast I dare say that you'll find the prominence of Nolan and Snyder completely inverted from what they're presenting here, with Snyder taking all the acclaim while Nolan gets a pat on the head for being a good support.
So what happened between Cavill being cast and Crowe being cast to make Warner Brothers want to minimize the visibility and involvement of their own director? Sucker Punch did. Though this is speculation it would appear that Warner Brothers took such a commercial and critical bashing on Snyder's passion project that they now wish to keep him as much as possible in the background on their big summer tentpole. Interesting.
Major announcements in the trade papers are carefully managed affairs, put together by teams of publicists and executives to shape a message for the masses. Nothing at all appears - or fails to appear - in these stories by accident. And it is quite clear from the official Crowe casting announcement in Variety that the name Warner Brothers want people to associate with Man Of Steel in not Zack Snyder but Christopher Nolan.
The piece opens like this:
The piece goes on from there, giving all credit for the casting to Nolan while later crediting Nolan for "as his his way" keeping the plot details under wraps. He is mentioned by name again as a producer in the next paragraph. In all Nolan is specifically referenced as being in charge of the film four times in the brief piece while Snyder is mentioned only once.Whether paying homage to Marlon Brando's cameo in Superman, or just wanting splashy marquee name, Christopher Nolan had all along been seeking an A-list thesp for Jor-El, Superman's biological father, since agreeing to godfather the franchise reboot Man of Steel, for Warner Bros.
Now, I don't want to minimize Nolan's involvement - he has been around on this right from the beginning - but the simple fact is that he's not directing it. Snyder is. And Nolan, frankly, absolutely will not be able to be hands on during production because he's got a big hero movie of his own in production right now. And if you go back to the casting announcements for Henry Cavill and other key cast I dare say that you'll find the prominence of Nolan and Snyder completely inverted from what they're presenting here, with Snyder taking all the acclaim while Nolan gets a pat on the head for being a good support.
So what happened between Cavill being cast and Crowe being cast to make Warner Brothers want to minimize the visibility and involvement of their own director? Sucker Punch did. Though this is speculation it would appear that Warner Brothers took such a commercial and critical bashing on Snyder's passion project that they now wish to keep him as much as possible in the background on their big summer tentpole. Interesting.