I don’t think Warner Brothers is particularly stressed out about their franchise slate, especially in the short term (Hangover, Oz, superheroes yet let untapped), but it’s hard to ignore a decade-long revenue stream drying up, and the impending closure of a difficult-to-replicate superhero franchise success. I’m sure it’s safe to say they’d like to get Superman started off again correctly. They’ve slathered on the Nolan connection as much as possible, and supposedly Chris’ brother Johnathan took a pass on the Goyer script. Now comes word that director Zach Snyder’s right-hand-screenwriter Kurt Johnstad is polishing off a new draft.
Goyer has moved on to re-writing some massive lizard action as you may have heard, so Snyder calling in a total rockstar bro to add words is not surprising. Johnstad contributed to 300 (as well as the upcoming prequel), but he’s not a well-known writer in his own right. Clearly Johnstad has a handle on writing action, but he’s done plenty of dramatic screenwriting as well– it’s tough to accurately predict what he’s been brought in to do…
It’s long been rumored that despite whatever brilliant idea Goyer had that got Nolan excited enough to push this reboot, the script itself was saddled with a garbage third act. Who knows how true that is, but it seemed to come from enough directions that it was probably based on something legit. That may be a problem that was solved long ago but regardless, lots of work is being put into this screenplay. I hope all of it amounts to something worth seeing by the time the cameras roll. I’m sure WB does too.
Tell me what you think all of these contributing screenwriters should hold as their highest priorities when they tinker with the Man of Steel script. Twitter, comments, boards- pick a place…