Christopher McQuarrie Turned Down Directing ‘Green Lantern’ & Explains That Canon “Strangles The Movie To Death”

When directors’ names get thrown around for the next big superhero film, there always seems to be one person that is always brought up — Christopher McQuarrie. After writing and directing the two best films in the “Mission: Impossible” series, the filmmaker has made himself a go-to man for quality action films. So, it’s no surprise that McQuarrie has been approached about a jaunt in the superhero arena. But as the director explains, he’s probably not the right guy for the job.

In a recent Q&A with Collider, McQuarrie clears the air about how close, or not, he’s gotten to directing a superhero film. He confirms the earlier point he made about talking to Henry Cavill about what he thinks would be an amazing version of “Man of Steel 2,” but he says that no one has called up him from the studio about the film. And he knows why.

READ MORE: Christopher McQuarrie Talked About A Potential ‘Superman’ Film With Henry Cavill

For McQuarrie, he realized he probably doesn’t have much of a superhero future after being approached about “Green Lantern Corps.” He confirms that Warner Bros. did approach him about the film, but during that meeting, it was abundantly clear that this type of filmmaking wasn’t for him.

He explains:

“I had a conversation with the previous regime about ‘Green Lantern.’ I’m not a comic book guy. I’m a story guy. So I don’t care if it’s Superman, or Green Lantern, or some superhero you’ve never heard of, to me it always comes down to, is there a good story? And can we make a good movie out of it? I don’t really have that kind of… that comic book fan, thing. Which, I think, and I’ll get myself into trouble, I think that’s one of the things that’s kind of crippling those movies, is everybody’s got these moments in a comic book that they want to see put into a movie. That’s not always necessarily the most cinematic thing, or the movie has to jump through hoops to get it. And I watched as other franchise movies try really hard to keep stuff that’s canon, and strangles the movie to death, and I’ve been in meetings where I’m like, ‘Can we just move this?’ ‘No, no, no, don’t move that! Don’t! Seven people saw that in a comic book ten years ago! It’s established! It’s canon!’ And I was like, ‘But the movie sucks. Can we just do it?’ ‘No you can’t!”

READ MORE: Christopher McQuarrie Shoots Down ‘Mission: Impossible’ Spin-Offs But Hints At A Future Film With Rebecca Ferguson

McQuarrie paints a picture that film fans and superhero fans know too well. Studios, due to the recent explosion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe over the last decade, are doing their best to emulate Disney’s success. And because of the way Marvel Studios holds so true to the source material, no one is willing to “betray” fans by changing major parts of the origin story or comic book lore. For fans of the comics, that can be great (i.e. – the MCU) but it can also be very, very bad (i.e. – the DCEU).

The filmmaker continues by describing the meeting he had about ‘Green Lantern,’ saying after he presented his idea for the film, “ they were like, ‘Ah, but you know,’ and I said, ‘Well, that’s what I would do,’ and they said, ‘Well, will you direct it?’ And I said, ‘No, ’cause there’s no script.’ And they said, ‘Well you write the script,’ and I said, ‘But I may not be the guy to direct,’ like don’t make it a McQuarrie movie, make it the greatest Green Lantern you can make it. We don’t know what that is tonally. We don’t know what any of that stuff is until we get under the hood, and I may be the worst guy in the world.”

READ MORE: Christopher McQuarrie Says He’d “Rather Have Leprosy” Than Direct ‘Mission: Impossible 7’

This all seems like common sense, but again, we’re talking about big studios and superhero films, which throws the common sense rulebook out the window. You hire a director, then work on the script, with major tentpoles like this. For McQuarrie, he’s a script-first type of guy, and won’t agree to direct unless he feels he’s “right” for the job. No studio, whether it’s WB, Fox, Sony, or Disney, is going to “wait and see” what happens after the script is written.

Ultimately, it all comes down to story for McQuarrie. He explains, “I just go through the door that opens, and when somebody says, ‘You want to write The Tourist?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, okay, I think there’s a story there and we can figure it out.’ I don’t always do that, but to me it’s like, a comic book is no different than a gothic romance is no different than science fiction, fantasy, drama, it’s all the same stuff to me. It’s like, that’s the opening through which I can escape into what I like to do, which is make shit up.”

Who knows? Maybe someone will hire him to “make shit up” for a superhero film eventually. But right now, it’s not looking like it’ll happen any time soon.