Author/director Christopher McQuarrie is aware of his method across the motion style fairly nicely, with the newest instance of this being the 2025 film launch of Mission: Unattainable — The Ultimate Reckoning this previous weekend. Nonetheless, he has but to delve into the sub-genre that’s superhero motion pictures, though he got here fairly near doing so. There was a time when McQuarrie was going to helm a Superman film, and he’s now how this venture would have channeled the beloved Pixar film Up in an “epic method.”
Again when the DC Prolonged Universe was nonetheless going, McQuarrie pitched each Inexperienced Lantern and Superman motion pictures to Warner Bros. Photos. The latter, after all, would have been a sequel to Man of Metal, and the filmmaker had this to say about how his film’s opening minutes would lined the lifetime of Henry Cavill’s Kal-El/Clark Kent:
The primary 5 minutes of my Superman film… you keep in mind Pixar’s Up? A sequence with no dialogue that lined [Krypton]. The primary 5 minutes of the film was a setup after which you knew precisely what made Superman tick and precisely what Superman was most afraid of and why Superman made the alternatives that he made. And it will have epic. In 5 minutes, the size of the film would have been completely extraordinary.
Christopher McQuarrie frolicked sharing this imaginative and prescient for his Superman film whereas showing on Completely satisfied Unhappy Confused, the place he additionally talked about subjects like how he’s already cracked the story for High Gun 3. I agree this might have been epic. It positively channels the identical sort of vibe of how Up (which might be streamed with a Disney+ subscription) lined Carl and Ellie’s life collectively. I do know I’m not alone pondering it’s nonetheless one of the crucial emotionally-powerful openings to a film ever.
Going a step additional, McQuarrie’s concept jogs my memory of how Zack Snyder’s Watchmen film used its opening credit to cowl the historical past of costumed heroes from proper earlier than World Battle II to 1985 to the tune of Bob Dylan “The Occasions They Are a-Changin’.” On this case although, the sequence would have delved into Superman’s deeper characterization and the rationale he makes use of his powers to guard the harmless. So far as what Supes is most afraid of, I think about the reply wouldn’t have been one thing so simple as kryptonite, and as an alternative might need been that even with all his would possibly, he nonetheless can’t save everybody.
Alas, Man of Metal 2 by no means acquired off the bottom, although we did see extra of Henry Cavill’s Superman in Batman v Superman: Daybreak of Justice, each cuts of Justice League and Black Adam. Possibly there’s one other universe on the market the place the DCEU continued and Christopher McQuarrie acquired to make this Superman film, which he additionally described in his interview with Josh Horowitz as “fucking good.” Though that didn’t work out in our actuality, I’m hoping there’ll come
In the meantime, a brand new period of Superman movie historical past is about to start, with James Gunn’s Superman introducing us to David Corenswet’s model of the Kryptonian hero within the DC Universe franchise on July 11. We’ll additionally ship time together with his cousin Kara Zor-El, performed by Milly Alcock, subsequent yr in Supergirl: Lady of Tomorrow.