Christopher Nolan added another memorable movie to his respected filmography when he put out the film Interstellar.
But his sci-fi epic took some inspiration from the superhero Superman in a small but significant way.
Christopher Nolan was a producer on ‘Man of Steel’
Although he didn’t direct the project, Nolan played a small part in bringing Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel to the big screen. He served as a producer on the movie, and had full faith in Snyder’s vision at the time. He felt audiences would share his faith after seeing what Snyder had in store for them.
“It’s very much Zack’s film and I think people are going to love what he’s done. I think it’s really remarkable to take on that character. Superman is a completely different character than Batman, so you can’t in anyway use the same template,” Nolan once told Empire.
Nolan also gave credit to David Goyer for the movie’s quality. Goyer was involved in the stories for all three of Nolan’s Batman films, and wrote Man of Steel as well.
“But David Goyer had this, I thought, brilliant way to make Superman relatable and relevant for his audience,” Nolan said. “Zack has built on that and I think it’s incredible what he’s putting together. He’s got a lot of finishing to do on that. Superman is the biggest comic book character of them all and he needs the biggest possible movie version which is what Zack’s doing. It’s really something.”
How ‘Man of Steel’ influenced ‘Interstellar’
On the surface Interstellar may have little in common with Man of Steel. Nolan’s 2014 sci-fi movie focused on a team of researchers searching for other habitable planets other than Earth in the wake of global famine.
It’s a far cry away from the premise of Man of Steel. Still, Nolan took a few visual inspirations from Man of Steel’s aesthetic. Much of Interstellar takes place on farmland that experiences a dust bowl due to the planet’s condition. Nolan shared that the all-american feel of these farms was reminiscent of Superman’s upbringing.
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“That all-American iconography has always been so potent in the Superman myth. It was in this script before I came to the project—he was developing the script for Steven Spielberg to direct, originally—and I think the Americana had worked its way in there. I certainly found it very helpful when I realized we were going to have to grow our own corn,” Nolan once said in an interview with Daily Beast.
To grow the corn in the film, Nolan turned to his own Man of Steel director for help.
“I phoned Zack [Snyder] and said, ‘Well how much did you grow?’ and he told me they grew 300 acres and that it cost X amount, so we grew about 500 acres of corn and actually sold it and ended up making a profit off it,” he said.
Zack Snyder once asked Christopher Nolan’s blessing to make ‘Batman v Superman’
After Man of Steel, Snyder would aim to direct the sequel Batman v Superman. The filmmaker decided to pit Superman against a new live-action Batman. But before doing so, he felt like he needed Nolan’s approval.
“‘You tell me if you don’t want me to do it,’” Snyder recalled telling Nolan in an interview with Empire.
However, Nolan reassured Snyder that he didn’t mind Batman being used at all.
“‘Well, we don’t own these characters. When you’re done making Batman movies, someone else will [make them],’” Snyder remembered Nolan telling him.
