Christopher Nolan is among the hottest and roundly revered administrators working in Hollywood as we speak. Not solely does he make acclaimed epics like “Dunkirk,” however his films are additionally remarkably fashionable. “Oppenheimer” made almost $1 billion and received Finest Image on the Oscars. That mixing of monetary success and business accolades is extraordinarily uncommon. However Nolan wasn’t at all times an A-lister who might choose the tasks he wished primarily at will. Living proof: Regardless that he is making “The Odyssey” as we converse, he beforehand flirted with one other Greek mythology film that ended up going to a distinct director.
Just lately, author David Goyer spoke with the “Joyful Unhappy Confused” podcast in honor of the twentieth anniversary of “Batman Begins,” which Nolan directed. “I had heard that Chris could be growing a brand new Batman film and I bear in mind telling my agent, ‘Properly, it is by no means going to get made,” Goyer mentioned. “None of these guys might get it made.”
To Goyer’s level, many writers had been making an attempt to get a “Batman” film off the bottom at Warner Bros. after the failure of Joel Schumacher’s “Batman & Robin.” Nolan grew to become the person to make it occur, however that was solely after, in response to Goyer, he was supplied DC’s beloved superhero as a comfort prize for not attending to direct 2004’s “Troy.” This is what he needed to say about it:
“The irony is that it seems that Batman was a comfort prize for Chris as a result of he had been growing ‘Troy.’ Then, sooner or later, ‘Troy’ was shifted away and given to [Wolfgang Petersen]. I believe Wolfgang Petersen had been growing ‘Batman vs. Superman,’ so I believe they did a swap. That was meant to be the comfort prize, I suppose.”
Christopher Nolan directing Troy would have reshaped his profession
There’s an entire lot to unpack there, however let’s begin with the truth that sure, Wolfgang Petersen was slated to direct an exceedingly darkish model of “Batman vs. Superman” written by Andrew Kevin Walker (“Seven”) within the early 2000s, greater than a decade earlier than Zack Snyder made it a actuality with 2016’s “Batman v Superman: Daybreak of Justice.” As Goyer tells it, Warner Bros. let that model go and Petersen ended up directing “Troy,” which starred Brad Pitt in a retelling of Homer’s “The Iliad.”
In the meantime Nolan, who was coming off of “Memento” and “Insomnia,” was then supplied the prospect to get a brand new “Batman” film off the bottom. A 2013 article from Deadline revealed that “Nolan was going to direct ‘Troy’ (launched in 2004) however wasn’t feeling it,” and since he’d at all times had an curiosity in Batman, he pitched his tackle the franchise to WB executives. The remainder is historical past, with 2005’s “Batman Begins” utterly reinventing the superhero on the massive display screen.
That paved the way in which for 2008’s “The Darkish Knight,” which stays some of the acclaimed mainstream blockbusters of all time, in addition to 2012’s “The Darkish Knight Rises,” which was, for a time, the highest-grossing DC film ever. Nevertheless, it does not fairly sound like, primarily based on the Deadline report, that “Batman” was in any means a comfort prize for Nolan. In any occasion, it’s attention-grabbing to think about a world the place he directed “Troy,” which was certainly a giant film, as a substitute of doing “Batman Begins,” as a result of it will have modified all the trajectory of his profession.
In the meantime, Nolan is at present filming “The Odyssey” for Common Photos, a Greek epic with a stacked forged that can be primarily based on the works of Homer (to simplify, it is primarily a sequel to the occasions of “Troy”). Nevertheless severe his flirtation with “Troy” was all these years in the past, it is fascinating that it is all come full circle indirectly greater than 20 years later.
“The Odyssey” is about to hit theaters on July 17, 2026.
