MAN OF STEEL (2013)
>Warner Bros Pictures greenlit the reboot in order to retain the rights to certain aspects of the character during the legal battle with the heirs of Superman's creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Several directors and writers pitched their ideas for the story, among them Mark Millar, who advocated for a six movie sage chronicling Superman's entire life from his birth to his death, tentatively directed by Matthew Vaughn.
>Millar envisioned the first movie set entirely in Krypton and ending with Kal-El's rocket ship crash-landing in Smallville, Kansas; and the final movie culminating with Superman as the last man alive, having outlived all of his loved ones, left alone in an Earth ravaged as the Sun is on the verge of going supernova, like Krypton's once did. As it becomes red, stripping Superman of his powers, Superman embraces death and perishes when the Sun explodes and consumes the Earth.
>David S. Goyer created a concept for a modern, realistic approach on Superman while mapping out the plot of THE DARK KNIGHT RISES with Christopher Nolan, who then advocated in his favor with WB, leading to Goyer being selected as the writer. Nolan's brother and collaborator Jonathan Nolan was initially expected to direct the movie, but declined as he felt the project was too risky for his directorial debut.
>Ben Affleck was approached to direct the movie, but declined.
>Matt Reeves, Duncan Jones and Jonathan Liebesman were the frontrunners to direct the movie before Zack Snyder was hired. Darren Aronofsky was in advanced talks beforehand, but WB parted ways with him because he requested to revise Goyer's draft to his liking, and it required a bigger timetable than WB could afford in order to retain the rights.
>Although Goyer is the only credited writer, Snyder's collaborator Kurt Johnstad reportedly heavily doctored the script based on Snyder's notes.