Producer Charles Roven: No Crossovers for Superman and Batman Movie Franchises
Posted 01.06.11 by BrentJS
One of the biggest questions on the minds of many comic book movie fans is whether or not Warner Bros. (WB) ever plans to cross over its Batman and Superman movie franchises. The two characters have been teaming up with each other for decades in the comic books on which the franchises are based and they even share a currently-ongoing DC Comics title, Superman/Batman. Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (Batman & Robin) reportedly pitched a crossover movie to WB in 2007 titled Batman vs. Superman, and even managed to convince director Francis Lawrence to insert a billboard for the movie into I Am Legend, which he co-wrote, but WB apparently passed on the script.
Now, with acclaimed director Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Inception) gearing up for The Dark Knight Rises and simultaneously "godfathering" the development of Superman: The Man of Steel, a crossover between the Dark Knight and the Last Son of Krypton has never seemed more possible. Unfortunately, producer Charles Roven recently told ShockTillYouDrop that there are no plans to have the two characters meet one another any time soon.
That may be in somebody's mind but right now the Batman lives in his world and the Superman lives in his world. Those stories are those stories and we haven't thought beyond each individual picture.
Roven also confirmed that The Dark Knight Rises will likely be the last Batman movie for Nolan.
Well, I think that Chris Nolan has said that he wanted to make a trilogy and this is a trilogy. As far as we all know, this is it. This is the trilogy. The Dark Knight Rises is the third part of what Chris created with Batman Begins and we're not looking past that. I've said this about Chris before: I've never known Chris to do anything but focus on the movie he's making. He gets completely immersed in the movie he's doing and I know that all he's thinking about right now when it comes to Batman, the Dark Knight Rises, is making it the best movie he can.
When asked if that singular focus of Nolan's will negatively affect The Man of Steel production, Roven said that they're already "talking about how to make it work" for Nolan.
Hopefully, there will be a little bit of time in-between the start of production on both of them. Right now Dark Knight Rises is coming out in the summer of 2012 and Superman is coming out in the winter of 2012. So hopefully—and we're just at the beginning phases of both of them. We haven't even entered official pre-production on either one of them—there will be a little bit of room. They're both going to be long shoots. I'm sure there's going to be some overlap, but hopefully there'll be as little overlap as possible.
Roven refused, however, to comment on the rumor that Superman's iconic red-and-blue suit will be CGI like Ryan Reynolds's superhero duds in Green Lantern, another WB adaptation of a DC Comics character.
You know, one of the things that you probably know about me and us working on this movie is that the rumors are the rumors and when we have something to say, we'll say it. Until we do, there's nothing to say.
The Dark Knight Rises is currently being written by Nolan's brother, Jonathan. It is expected to go into production in May. The Man of Steel is being written by David S. Goyer, writer of both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. No start date has been announced, but some reports have the movie going into production as early as June.