2013 Movie News Archives

July 9, 2013: Jav Oliva Talks "Man of Steel" and Possible Sequel Ideas

Man of Steel "Man of Steel" Storyboard Artist Jay Oliva spoke at length with VoicesFromKrypton.net about the movie, his thoughts on the final fight sequence with Zod, and possible ideas for more movies moving forward. Here's an excerpt from Part 1 of the interview...

    JAY OLIVA: One of the things that I'd mentioned to Zack is that I didn't want to do what happens in Dark Knight Rises, where Gotham is empty. It's supposed to have a two million population, but there are, like, 100 guys who are able to patrol the whole thing and the public is saying, "Oh, there's a bomb on the island. I'm not going to leave." Are you kidding? If that happened here in L.A., everyone would be fleeing! And so that was one of the things we discussed - I remember I was asking Zach, maybe we should try doing that - to show people fleeing - and I remember we tried doing that, but there was no time in terms of the relentless attack that was being planned for Zod and Superman. It was just constant. It's almost like, if you were fighting a lion, you wouldn't have time to look around to make sure your surroundings were okay, because at any point there could be an attack. People are saying, "How many times can you slam a guy into a building?", but, really, it's because they're trying to position themselves because at any moment Zod could snap Superman's neck or vice versa, if you think of it that way. Now there was, of course, a lot of destruction, but a lot of it had happened from the initial attack by the Black Zero in Metropolis. So I figured a lot of people had already evacuated the buildings, and in fact The Daily Planet is one of the closer buildings to the epicenter, so a lot of people there had already started fleeing the city. We did have a few shots of people fleeing across a bridge, but that was cut in the end. Obviously I didn't write the script, but when I was storyboarding it, I tried to make sure that it was as relentless as possible.

    I do think that a lot of the things that people didn't like could also lead to what Superman will eventually be in Man of Steel 2. I have no idea what they're going to do with it, but that could be an arc. I do remember that there was a discussion after I read the script and talked to Zack where I said, "Really? Superman is going to kill?" He said yes, and then I thought about it. We discussed it a little bit more and I thought, "OK, I can get behind this, because you have to give a reason why he has this no killing code," if you know what I mean. Also, it's "Superman Year One"; he's fallible. One of the things that people who were never fans had a problem with was that previously Superman was too "goody-goody" or he was too perfect. As soon as he finished in Smallville, he was, like, "Ah, ha: Truth, justice and the American way!" I think this different take actually gives you a reason for why he feels that way. Like I said, maybe the aftermath or backlash in 2 might be a good way to bring in Lex Luthor to rally the country against Superman. Everyone assumes that just because Superman is here, everyone is going to be, "Yeah!" Like in Superman Returns where everyone expects Superman to save them. I think this is a little bit more of a realistic take in the sense of what would happen to the general public? If this was comic books back in the '70s or '80s, people might have just accepted him with, "Oh, yeah, it's Superman. He's a good guy." But today people want a lot more realism in their superhero movies and comics and it also leaves a nice little arc for Superman. Who knows, you might get this backlash in number two where he isn't what everyone wants him to be and he's struggling to help everyone, but at the same time people are against him. Even if we do carry over that Christ theme through there, it would actually work. If you think about it, everyone turns on Jesus in The Bible and I think that would be an exciting arc.

    When it's all said and done - whether through a Justice League movie or sequels to this one - you're going to see a nice arc.

Read the entire interview at the Voices From Krypton website.



2013 Movie News

Listed below are all the Movie News items archived for 2013 organized into various categories:

“Man of Steel” Movie News:

“Superman/Batman” Movie News: “Justice League” Movie News: “Superman: Unbound” Animated Movie News: “Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox” Animated Movie News: “Justice League: War” Animated Movie News: Christopher Reeve Movie News: Other Movie News:

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