Zack Snyder is tapped to re-launch Superman

LOS ANGELES — Zack Snyder, the director of the edgy comic-book films “300” and “Watchmen,” will direct the Warner Bros. revival of Superman, the first and most famous costumed superhero of them all.

The 44-year-old Snyder will work side-by-side with producers Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas,
the tandem that pulled the Batman character back toward cinematic
credibility with the films “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight,” the
latter grossing more than $1 billion at theaters worldwide. David S. Goyer (“Batman Begins”) is writing the script and shares the story credit with Nolan.

Snyder has shown a flair for kinetic hyper-reality
and, in an interview Monday, he said that in recent days he finds that
he “lays awake at night” thinking about the ways to present a Man of
Steel who flies.

He declined to talk about story or casting — “He has
to be a man … that’s as far as I’ve gotten” — but did say the film
will target a holiday 2012 release.

“I have a fondness for the character and a real
desire to understand him and present him to a new audience,” Snyder
said. “The challenge is huge … it is a hard character to crack.”

The perception that the character may have a bigger
past than future may have been reinforced by the solid but
unspectacular performance of Bryan Singer’s “Superman Returns” in 2006.

Snyder, though, said the concept can still fly. “I
think he is viable, yes,” the filmmaker said. “He endures. We all want
to know, ‘How will he come to us now?'”

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