14 DAY TRIAL // The direct sequel to 2013’s “Man of Steel,” tentatively called “Man of Steel 2,” doesn’t have a release date yet, but Warner Bros. is already looking for a director for it. According to Collider Movie Talk contributor Jon Schnepp, they’re turning to someone they already know, have worked with and are very happy with how it turned out: Australian director George Miller.
Miller doesn’t have too many movies on his resume, but those he does have are both cult classics and big hits. They include the original “Mad Max” trilogy with Mel Gibson, “Babe: Pig in the City,” “Happy Feet 2,” and this year’s critical hit “Mad Max: Fury Road.”
At one point, Miller was in talks to direct “Justice League: Mortals,” also with Warners, but that project fell through. Still, the studio wants him to be involved in at least one movie from their reinvented Justice League franchise, so they’re trying to get him on board for “Man of Steel 2.”
“George Miller is doing Man of Steel 2,” Schnepp says. “I don’t feel weird about breaking it. Obviously Zack Snyder is doing Justice League one and two, James Wan is doing Aquaman. … I think George Miller’s a perfect choice to do Man of Steel 2. He’s going to bring so much to it.”
The first thing that Miller is probably going to bring to the second Superman movie from the rebooted franchise is some much-needed color. The first film, though a decent hit in terms of box office gross, was criticized by fans for being too Nolan-esque in the way it desatured colors to achieve that somber, gritty visual typical for Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies.
Zack Snyder directed it, but Nolan served as producer, so “Man of Steel” ended up looking like Snyder’s interpretation of a Nolan film. It wasn’t necessarily a good thing.