Here’s something we, and seemingly many others more invested in this, missed.
Earlier this month the geek set went into near hysterics of joy when it was announced that Christopher Nolan would be godfathering and overseeing the next iteration of a “Superman” film.
However, MTV just sat down with D.C. Entertainment President Diane Nelson and asked her point blank about the story, which she shot down as a “rumor.”
“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, the [Nolan/Superman story is] nothing but rumor — and we frankly don’t say a whole lot more about rumor than that, so…”
According to a comment on this Anne Thompson round-up, Nikki Finke, who broke the original Nolan/Superman story, has been deleting any comments on it now that Nelson has shot down her claim, which is the Deadline m.o. Though, Nelson’s quotes do read a little terse and perhaps even a bit defensive. Could it be D.C. was angry that Deadline beat them to an official announcement? Nelson’s first response to the question of whether the story was true or not was, “Wouldn’t you like to know,” which again seems somewhat cagey. Maybe the news was premature and Nolan and D.C. hadn’t agreed to anything yet? Making this denial even odder, is the fact that Warner Bros. stayed silent. You would have imagined D.C. would’ve been on their ass to issue a retraction of some kind when the news broke.
So, strange that there was no vehement denial at the time. However, adding yet another wrinkle, on Thursday WB announced the names of a whole slew of new D.C. Entertainment execs — all of them charged with using the library of DC Comics characters across media platforms, including film — and there wasn’t mention of Nolan being on board anything. You’ll also notice that the trades, who often follow Deadline Hollywood’s lead when they’ve broken a story, have not confirmed or regurgitated this report yet, which is eye opening. Furthermore, a reader points us to a New York Times article published the day after Finke’s report, that quotes Nolan and WB executives about their business and the future. It does confirm the third “Batman” film that Nolan is now working on, but has no mention of “Superman.” Something seems to be amiss here.
While he’s busy editing, “Inception,” Christopher Nolan does occasionally come up for air and talks to the press. We’re sure someone’s going to talk to the director soon enough and then we’ll hear it from the horse’s mouth. Until then, maybe we should manage our expectations for the project.