Man of Steel (film)

In June 2008, Warner Bros. took pitches from comic book writers, screenwriters and directors on how to successfully restart the Superman film series.[58] Comic book writers Grant Morrison, Mark Waid, Geoff Johns and Brad Meltzer were among those who pitched their ideas for a reboot. "I told them, it's not that bad. Just treat Superman Returns as the Ang Lee Hulk," Morrison said. "The Incredible Hulk has proven the audience will forgive you and let you redo the franchise," said Waid.[59] Morrison's idea was similar to his work on All-Star Superman, while Waid's was akin to Superman: Birthright.[59] Mark Millar, teaming with director Matthew Vaughn, also planned an epic eight-hour Superman trilogy, each installment released a year apart, similar to The Lord of the Rings.[60][61] Millar compared it to The Godfather trilogy, in which it would chronicle the entire life of Superman, from the early days of Krypton, where little Kal-El witnesses his father's tireless struggle to save the planet, to the finale where Superman loses his powers as the Sun starts to go supernova.[62] According to Millar, Vaughn suggested his Stardust actor Charlie Cox as a Golden-Age inspired Superman "when he was a bit more of a regular person." [63]

In August 2008, Warner Bros. suggested a reboot of the film series. Studio executive Jeff Robinov planned to have the film released either by 2010 or 2011, explaining "Superman Returns didn't quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to. It didn't position the character the way he needed to be positioned. Had Superman worked in 2006, we would have had a movie for Christmas of this year or 2009. Now the plan is just to reintroduce Superman without regard to a Batman and Superman movie at all."[64] Paul Levitz stated in an interview that Batman holds the key to the Superman reboot. He elaborated, "Everyone is waiting for Nolan to sign on for another Batman, once that happens, the release date for Superman and all other future projects will follow."[65] In February 2009, McG, who previously planned to direct Superman: Flyby, expressed interest in returning to the Superman franchise.[65][66] August 2009 saw a court ruling in which Jerry Siegel's family recaptured 50% of the rights to Superman's origins and Siegel's share of the copyright in Action Comics #1.[67] In addition, a judge ruled that Warner Bros. did not owe the families additional royalties from previous films. However, if they did not begin production on a Superman film by 2011, then the Siegel estate would have been able to sue for lost revenue on an unproduced film.[68]

The plot of Man of Steel employs a nonlinear narrative, and tells parts of the story in flashback. During story discussions for The Dark Knight Rises in 2008, David S. Goyer told Christopher Nolan his idea regarding how to present Superman in a modern context.[56] Impressed with Goyer's concept, Nolan pitched the idea to the studio,[56] who hired Nolan to produce and Goyer to write based on the financial and critical success of The Dark Knight.[69][64] Nolan admired Bryan Singer's work on Superman Returns for its connection to Richard Donner's version, stating that "A lot of people have approached Superman in a lot of different ways. I only know the way that has worked for us that's what I know how to do," emphasizing the idea that Batman exists in a world where he is the only superhero and a similar approach to the Man of Steel would assure the integrity needed for the film. "Each serves to the internal logic of the story. They have nothing to do with each other." Nolan, however, clarified that the new film would not have any relationship with the previous film series.[70]

Jeff Robinov, president of Warner Bros. Pictures Group, spoke to Entertainment Weekly, and allowed a peek over the wall of secrecy surrounding their DC Comics plans: "It's setting the tone for what the movies are going to be like going forward. In that, it's definitely a first step."[71] Plans included for the film to contain references to the existence of other superheroes, alluding to the possibility of a further DC Universe,[72] and setting the tone for a shared fictional universe of DC Comics characters on film.[71] Guillermo del Toro, with whom Goyer worked on Blade II, turned down the director's position on the reboot because of his commitment on a film adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness,[73] while Robert Zemeckis was also approached.[74] Ben Affleck (who would eventually be cast as Bruce Wayne/Batman in the film's sequel), Darren Aronofsky, Duncan Jones, Jonathan Liebesman, Matt Reeves and Tony Scott were considered as potential directors,[75] before Zack Snyder was hired in October 2010.[76] Casting began the following November.[77][78] Snyder confirmed both Booster Gold and Batman references in the film, indicating their presence in the DC shared film universe. When Zod destroys a satellite, the words "Wayne Enterprises" are scrolled on the satellite.[79]

The film's storyboard was created by Filipino-American storyboard artist Jay Oliva, in his first live-action feature film project, along with Snyder.[80] Oliva has cited the Japanese anime shows Dragon Ball Z and Birdy the Mighty as an inspiration for the film's epic battle scenes. During the film's brainstorming, Oliva pitched the idea as, "I could come up with something I've never seen in live-action American cinema and only in anime".[81]

Principal photography began on August 1, 2011, at an industrial park near DuPage Airport under the codename "Autumn Frost".[82] Zack Snyder expressed reluctance to shooting the film in 3-D, due to the technical limitations of the format, and instead chose to shoot the film two-dimensionally and convert the film into 3-D in post production, for a 2-D, 3-D, and IMAX 3-D release.[83] Snyder also chose to shoot the film on film instead of digitally, because he felt it would make the film, "a big movie experience".[84] Cinematographer Amir Mokri shot the film with Panavision Panaflex Millennium XL2 cameras and C-Series anamorphic lenses.[85] Filming was expected to last for two to three months.[86] Production took place in Plano, Illinois on August 22 to 29.[82][87] According to an interview with Michael Shannon, filming would continue until February 2012.[88]

Man of Steel filmed in the Chicago area, California and Burnaby's Mammoth Studios, which was transformed into Superman's home planet of Krypton and myriad extraterrestrial aircraft. Metro lands on Vancouver's North Shore waterfront hosted the shoot for the dramatic oil rig rescue that introduces audiences to Superman. Ucluelet and Nanaimo, British Columbia, feature prominently in the film's first hour—the trademark winter mist and rough seas are passed off as Alaska in the film. Filming took place in the Chicago Loop from September 7 to 17.[82] Vancouver production took place from September 21, 2011, to January 20, 2012 to celebrate the 60th-birthday anniversary of the late Christopher Reeve who was the first actor who played Superman in films.[89] The Chicago shoot was a unit project, meaning that filming would partake numerous establishing shots as well as cutaways and might not necessarily include principal cast members.[90]

Man of Steel features a redesigned Superman costume by James Acheson and Michael Wilkinson. The costume preserves the color scheme and "S" logo, but adopts darker tones, and notably does not feature the red trunks usually worn by Superman. Zack Snyder said the costume is "a modern aesthetic". He and the producers attempted to devise a suit featuring the red trunks, but could not design one that fit into the tone of the film, leading to their removal from the suit.[91] Because of Wilkinson's unavailability, Snyder chose Acheson to design the suit; however, he only started developing it, and Wilkinson finished the development when he returned, and designed the other character's costumes as well.[92] Due to the substantial weight a practical suit would yield, the Kryptonian armor for General Zod was constructed through CGI to allow Shannon "freedom of movement".[93] In a March 2014 interview with Esquire, Wilkinson explained the reason for the look of Superman's redesigned suit:

A lot of the efforts we took in the film were to explain why the suit looks the way it does. We didn't want it to be a random, ornamental decision. We start the film on the planet of Krypton, which is where the suit comes from, and we go to great pains to show the suit fitting into the culture. All of the people you see on Krypton are wearing this chainmail-like suit, with the same detailing as the Superman suit. Everyone has their family crests on their chests. The cuff and the boot details are shared through all of the different characters we meet on Krypton. So by the time we see Superman in his suit we understand why it looks the way it looks.[92]

John "DJ" Desjardin served as the visual supervisor for Man of Steel, with Weta Digital, MPC and Double Negative providing the visual effects for the film.[94][95] Zack Snyder wanted the film to "appear very natural because there's some very fantastical things in there and he wanted people to suspend their disbelief, and we the visual effects team had to make it as easy as possible for them to do so." Desjardin noted that the intent in shooting the film was to utilize handheld devices to make the film feel like a "documentary-style" film. "We had to think about what that would mean, since we also had to photograph some crazy action," said Desjardin. "So for a lot of the previs we did, we'd start to think where our cameras were and where our cameraman was. A lot of the rules are the Battlestar Galactica rules for the space cams that Gary Hurtzel [sic] developed for that miniseries, where we want to make sure if we're translating the camera at all it makes sense. Unless the action is so over the top, like in the end where Superman is beating up Zod—we had to break it a bit."[96]

Alien-like planet landscapes, creatures, and architecture were created by Weta Digital to further enhance the worldbuilding process of planet Krypton.

For the first act of the film taking place on the planet Krypton, Weta Digital placed alien-like planet environments, creatures and the principal means of display—a technology the filmmakers called "liquid geometry". Weta Digital visual effects supervisor Dan Lemmon explained that, "It's a bunch of silver beads that are suspended through a magnetic field, and the machine is able to control that magnetic field so that the collection of beads behave almost like three-dimensional pixels, and they can create a surface that floats in the air and describes whatever the thing is you're supposed to be seeing." The beads of the display, which up close would appear to be pyramids with a slight bevel, were designed to create a surface of the object to depict inside a "console-like" figure.[96]

In the modeling and animation aspect of the liquid geometry, Goodwin explained, "We had to develop a pipeline to bring in assets, so instead of going through the route of reducing the polygon count to something usable what we would then do—you would take the model in whatever way it was made and just scatter discrete points onto it, and extract the matrix onto the animation and copy these points onto the matrix and have these sparse points behaving in a way that the model would."[96] After the animation, artists duplicated the beads onto the animated geometry for a pre-simulated lighting version to get approval on how the object would read. Sims were then run "on all the targets which would be discrete beads floating around on top of the surface which would have its own set of parameters," said Goodwin. "The bead size or the turbulence that would crawl along the surface constantly updating the orientation was based on the normal provided by the surface. That was then saved to disk and we would use that sim as the final target for the simulation." After the simulation process, Weta Digital ran every bead through a temporal filter to remove jitter to control the noise. Lighting solutions directly worked on the set. Weta utilized RenderMan to take advantage of improved ray tracing and instancing objects.[96]

The sequences where Superman utilizes close-combat fight scenes with the other Kryptonians proved to be a major challenge for the filmmakers and the visual effects crew.[96] Desjardin explained, "When we do these fights and these hyper-real things, we don't want to do the traditional, 'OK I'm a cameraman, I'm shooting a clean plate, I'm going to pan over here to follow the action that's not really there yet but we'll put the action in later. Because that's us animating the characters to the camera. So we would do that animation with the characters—grappling, punching or flying away—and we would take the real guys up until the point until they were supposed to do that and we'd cut. Then we'd put an environment camera there and take the environment. And then a camera for reference of the actors and get each moment. So then we had a set of high-res stills for the environment and the characters. Then, in post, we take the digi-doubles and animate them according to the speeds we want them to move in our digital environment."[96]

MPC handled the visual effects for the "Smallville encounter" sequence. Before providing the visual effects, the shots were previsualized for the fight choreography. After the previsualizations, live action portions of the scene would be filmed in small pieces. "If say Superman was being punched and would land 50 meters away, we would shoot our start position and end position, and then bridge that gap with the CG takeovers," says Guillaume Rocheron, the MPC visual effects supervisor. A camera rig would then obtain key frames of the choreographed actor. "It's a six-still camera rig that's built on a pipe rig so that you can run it in at the end of a setup and get stills of key frames of a performance or an expression," said Desjardin, "and then we could use those hi-res stills to project onto the CG double and get really accurate transition lighting and color—right from the set."[96]

On set, a camera rig was used to capture the environment of the sequence. Dubbed "enviro-cam", the visual effects crew would mount a Canon EOS 5D and a motorized nodal head, allowing the crew to capture the environment at a 360-degree angle with 55K resolution for every shot, the process would take approximately two to four minutes. The set capture resulted in lighting and textures that could be reprojected onto geometry.[96] Full-screen digital doubles were a major component for the fighting sequences. Digital armor was also added, along with the energy-based Kryptonian helmets. Cyberscan and FACS were conducted with the actors, and polarized and non-polarized reference photos were taken. Superman's cape and costume were scanned in high detail—the cape in particular became a direct extension of Superman's actions.[96]

For the sequences involving the terraforming of the city Metropolis, Double Negative handled the visual effects for the sequence. In order to construct a Metropolis that seemed convincing and realistic, Double Negative utilized Esri's CityEngine to help procedurally deliver the city. "That was a much more sci-fi based role," said Double Negative visual effects supervisor Ged Wright, "so we took what they had done and extended it a great deal. The work we were doing was based around the Downtowns for New York, L.A. and Chicago and that gave us the building volumes for heights. We'd skin those volumes with kit parts, but most of it then had to fall down! So we had to rig it for destruction and use it for other aspects of the work as well."[96]

For the destruction of the buildings, the studio rewrote its own asset system to focus towards its dynamic events. The Bullet physics software was a heavily impacted component for the utilization of the destruction. "We wanted to be able to run an RBD event and trigger all these secondary events, whether it was glass or dust simulations—all of those things needed to be chained up and handled in a procedural way," said Wright. "One of the advantages of this was that, because it was all based around a limited number of input components, you can make sure they're modeled in a way they're usable in effects—you can model something but they'll be another stage to rig it for destruction." Fire, smoke, and water stimulation tools were developed at the Double Negative studio. The studio transitioned between the existing proprietary volume rendering software to rendering in Mantra for elements such as fireball sims. Double Negative also used the in-house fluids tool "Squirt" to handle larger-scale sims and interaction for more tightly coupled volumes and particles. Regarding the battle between Superman and Zod, Double Negative implemented real photography onto its digital doubles.[96]

Hans Zimmer initially denied popular rumors that he would be composing the film's score.[97] However, in June 2012, it was confirmed that Zimmer would, in fact, be doing so after all.[98] To completely distinguish Man of Steel from the previous films, the iconic "Superman March" by John Williams was not used.[99] Hans Zimmer's soundtrack for Man of Steel was released publicly on June 11, 2013.[100] An unofficial rip of the musical score from the third trailer, entitled "An Ideal of Hope", confirmed to be a cut-down version of the track "What Are You Going to Do When You Are Not Saving the World?", was released on April 19, 2013.[101] In late April 2013, the official tracklisting of the two-CD deluxe edition was revealed.[102]

Warner Bros. and DC Comics won the rights to the domain name manofsteel.com, in use by a member of the public, for use for the film's official website.[113] On November 20, 2012, for the release of The Dark Knight Rises DVD and Blu-ray, Warner Bros. launched a countdown on the film's website where fans could share the countdown on websites like Facebook or Twitter to unlock an "exclusive reward". On December 3, 2012, the "exclusive reward" was revealed to be an official Man of Steel teaser poster.[114] The poster, which depicts Superman being arrested, generated a positive response and much speculation about the film's story.[115] On December 10, 2012, a website appeared at dsrwproject.com that provided audio signals to be decoded by viewers. It was discovered to be related to the film due to the copyright on the website.[116] By December 11, 2012, the decoded message led readers to another website with a countdown that led to the public release of the trailer.[117][118] In anticipation of the film, Mattel unveiled a toy line which includes Movie Masters action figures. In addition, Lego released three Man of Steel sets, inspired by scenes from the film; Rubie's Costume Co. also released a new line of Man of Steel-inspired costumes and accessories for both kids and adults.[119] The film has reportedly earned over $160 million from promotional tie-ins.[120]

Viral marketing campaigns for the film began when the official website was replaced by "deep space radio waves". The message was decoded to reveal a voice that said "You Are Not Alone". The official site continued to be updated with new static files that slowly revealed the symbol for the film's villain, General Zod. Shortly after, the website was replaced with a "message" from Zod, who requested that Earth must return Kal-El to his custody and told Kal-El to surrender within 24 hours or the world would suffer the consequences.[121] A viral site called "IWillFindHim.com" was released that showed a countdown to the third trailer for the film.[122]

Warner Bros. enlisted Christian-based marketing firm Grace Hill Media to help spread the Christian themes of the film to the religious demographics. Special trailers were created outlining the religious tones, due to Hollywood studios frequently marketing movies to specific religious and cultural groups. Warner Bros. previously marketed films such as The Blind Side, The Notebook, The Book of Eli and the Harry Potter series to faith-based groups.[107][123] Warner Bros. also asked Professor Craig Detweiler of Pepperdine University to "create a Superman-centric sermon outline for pastors titled Jesus: The Original Superhero."[107] Regarding this, Paul Asay of The Washington Post wrote that "the religious themes keep coming: Free will. Sacrifice. God-given purpose. Man of Steel isn't just a movie. It's a Bible study in a cape. The messages are so strong that its marketers been [sic] explicitly pushing the film to Christian audiences."[106]

Man of Steel was released as a single-disc DVD (feature film only), on two-disc DVD with bonus features, and respective Blu-ray and Blu-ray 3D combo packs on November 12, 2013,[124] and in the United Kingdom on December 2, 2013.[125] As of January 2019, Man of Steel has sold more than 2.3 million DVDs along with an estimated of 3.3 million Blu-ray Discs totaling $44.2 million and $75.5 million, respectively, for a total of $119.8 million in sales.[126] The film was later released in 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray format on July 19, 2016.[127]

Man of Steel grossed $291 million in the United States and Canada, and $377 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $668 million,[3] making it the highest-grossing solo Superman film ever, and the second-highest-grossing reboot of all time behind The Amazing Spider-Man (although it did beat The Amazing Spider-Man in North America). Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit of the film to be $42.7 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues, making it the ninth most profitable release of 2013.[4] The film earned $116.6 million on its opening weekend, including $17.5 million from IMAX theaters.[128] Man of Steel earned an additional $111 million from DVD and Blu-ray sales.[126]

Man of Steel made $12 million from a Thursday night Walmart screening program, and an additional $9 million from midnight shows.[129] This marked Warner Bros.' third-highest advance night/midnight opening, and the biggest advance night/midnight debut for a non-sequel.[130] The film eventually earned $44 million during its opening Friday (including midnight grosses) and $56.1 million when the Thursday night showings are included. The opening-day gross was the second-highest for a non-sequel, and the 20th-largest overall.[3] Its opening weekend gross of $116.6 million was the third-highest of 2013, behind Iron Man 3 ($174.1 million) and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire ($158.1 million), and the third-highest among non-sequels, behind Marvel's The Avengers ($207.4 million) and The Hunger Games ($152.5 million). It also broke Toy Story 3's record ($110.3 million) for the highest weekend debut in June (the record was again broken two years later by Jurassic World's opening gross of $208.8 million).[131][132] However, on its second weekend, Man of Steel's box office fell almost 65%–68% if the Thursday night gross is included—putting it in third place, behind Monsters University and World War Z. Box Office Mojo called it an "abnormally large drop," close to the second-weekend decline for Green Lantern.[133]

Man of Steel earned $73.3 million on its opening weekend from 24 countries, which includes $4.2 million from 79 IMAX theaters, setting a June opening-weekend record for IMAX.[128] The film set an opening-day record in the Philippines with $1.66 million.[128] In the United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta, the film earned $5.6 million on its opening day and £11.2 million ($17.47 million) on its opening weekend.[134][135] Its biggest opener outside the United States was in China, with $25.9 million in four days (Thursday to Sunday).[136] In total earnings, its three largest countries after North America are China ($63.4 million), the United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta ($46.2 million) and Australia ($22.3 million).[137]

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 56% based on 335 reviews, with an average rating of 6.20/10. The site's consensus reads, "Man of Steel's exhilarating action and spectacle can't fully overcome its detours into generic blockbuster territory."[138] On Metacritic, the film received a weighted score of 55 out of 100, based on 47 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[139] Audience polls in North America from CinemaScore for the film tallied an average grade of an "A–" on an A+ to F scale, with those under the age of 18 and older than 50 giving it an "A".[134] Cavill's performance as Superman earned mixed reviews, with some critics commenting on perceived stiffness and a lack of charisma.[140]

Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times said that Man of Steel covered no new ground with regard to Superman films, and instead, "we're plunged back into a mostly-underwhelming film, with underdeveloped characters and supercharged-fight scenes that drag on and offer nothing new in the way of special-effects creativity".[141] The Boston Globe's Ty Burr wrote, "What's missing from this Superman saga is a sense of lightness, of pop joy".[142] The Washington Post's Ann Hornaday stated that with "Hans Zimmer's turgid, over-produced score", the film "is an exceptionally-unpleasant viewing experience".[143] For The Denver Post's Lisa Kennedy, the chief problem with Man of Steel is the "rhythm and balance in the storytelling and directing" which resulted in a film that swings "between destructive overstatement and flat-footed homilies."[144]

Kofi Outlaw, Editor-in-Chief at Screen Rant, gave Man of Steel a 4-out-of-5-star review, stating that "Man of Steel has more than earned its keep, and deserves to be THE iconic Superman movie for a whole new generation".[145] He would go on to name Man of Steel the best superhero movie of 2013.[146] Jim Vejvoda of IGN gave Man of Steel a 9 out of 10 while praising the action sequences and the performances of Kevin Costner, Russell Crowe and Michael Shannon.[147] The performance of Antje Traue as Superman's adversary Faora-Ul, particularly in the Smallville battle scenes, has also been lauded.[148][149] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave it 3 stars out of 4, saying, "Caught in the slipstream between action and angst, Man of Steel is a bumpy ride for sure. But there's no way to stay blind to its wonders."[150] Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter said rebooting the franchise was unnecessary, but that the film was confident enough and Snyder's attention to detail careful enough that audiences could overlook another reboot.[151] PopMatters journalist J.C. Maçek III, wrote, "The path of this flawed savior isn't quite the one that we have been led to expect and many fans will love that and many fans will decry its comic book-divergent choices. On the other hand, barring Lois Lane's own knowledge of the dual nature of Clark and Superman (thus depriving one of fiction's greatest reveals), the hero we see in the final moments of Man of Steel is nothing if not the character Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created ... with just a bit more in the 'imperfections' column."[152] Steve Persall of the Tampa Bay Times stated that, "Man of Steel is more than just Avengers-sized escapism; it's an artistic introduction to a movie superhero we only thought we knew."[153] Time magazine's Richard Corliss said, "The movie finds its true, lofty footing not when it displays Kal-El's extraordinary powers, but when it dramatizes Clark Kent's roiling humanity. The super part of Man of Steel is just okay, but the man part is super."[154] In a review on Roger Ebert's website, Matt Zoller Seitz awarded the film three out of four stars, calling it an "astonishing movie" and praising the conflict between Clark and Zod. But he criticized the film for not having more personal and intimate moments between Clark and Lois.[155] In 2014, Empire ranked Man of Steel the 286th-greatest film ever made on their list of "The 301 Greatest Movies Of All Time" as voted by the magazine's readers.[156]

Speaking to Fox Business Channel, Grae Drake, senior editor of Rotten Tomatoes, expressed dismay over the critical reception, stating, "As much as I love and respect our critics at Rotten Tomatoes, I've got to say I am shocked. Listen, the movie's not perfect but ... I just cannot fathom it. It was a good movie, you guys."[157]

Reaction to the film among comics creators was mixed.[158] Those who enjoyed it include Jeff Parker, Heidi MacDonald, Ethan Van Sciver, Christos Gage and former Superman writer Dan Jurgens. Among its detractors were Joe Keatinge, Sean McKeever, Gabriel Hardman and Mark Waid. MacDonald praised the film's action, drama and leads Henry Cavill and Amy Adams. Van Sciver singled out Cavill in particular for praise. Gage called it the best Superman film since 1980's Superman II. Hardman said that he liked a lot of the mechanics but did not connect with the characters, which robbed the story of tension. Waid, who wrote the origin miniseries Superman: Birthright, criticized the film for its overall "joyless" tone, and for Superman's decision to kill Zod,[158][159] a criticism echoed by other creators. Writer Grant Morrison, who wrote the critically acclaimed miniseries All-Star Superman, expressed mixed reaction to the film, saying that while he "kinda liked it and kinda didn't", it did not present anything new, as he would have preferred a "second act" type story with Lex Luthor instead of re-establishing the character by presenting information Morrison is already familiar with. Morrison also questioned the need for a superhero to kill,[160] as did artist Neal Adams. Adams suggested that other alternatives were open to Superman when Zod threatened innocent people with his vision of heat, such as covering his eyes. He also criticized Superman for not moving the battle away from Metropolis as the character did at the end of Superman II.[161] Jim Lee, who would go on to become President of DC Films had a positive opinion: "It’s epic. It’s got a lot of heart, but one of the things that was kind of missing from the last Superman movie I think was the action, and this movie has it in spades. I mean it is a visual thrill ride. It is amazing. You get to see all the powers of Superman, and in all its glory, and I think people are going to be blown away."[162]

The success of Man of Steel started Warner Bros. plans of a cinematic universe featuring other DC Comics characters. In June 2013, Goyer was hired to write the sequel to Man of Steel, as well as a Justice League script, with the previous draft being scrapped.[175] In July 2013, Snyder announced at San Diego Comic-Con International that the sequel to Man of Steel would have Superman and Batman meeting for the first time in the next film. Cavill, Adams, Lane and Fishburne were signed on to reprise their roles.[176][177] Snyder stated that the film would take inspiration from the comic The Dark Knight Returns.[178] In August 2013, Ben Affleck was announced to be playing Batman,[179] while Gal Gadot was cast as Wonder Woman in December 2013.[180] Later in December, Chris Terrio was hired to rewrite the script.[181] In January 2014, it was announced that the film had been delayed from its original July 17, 2015 release date to May 6, 2016.[182] In April 2014, it was announced that Zack Snyder would also be directing Goyer's Justice League script.[183] In May 2014, the film's title was revealed to be Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.[184] Warner Bros. was reportedly courting Chris Terrio to rewrite Justice League the following July, after having been pleased with his rewrite of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.[185] While Superman star Henry Cavill does not consider it a Superman sequel,[186] Snyder stated that he "thinks in a way Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is Man of Steel 2".[187]

In August 2016, TheWrap reported that Warner Bros. put the film in active development as a top priority.[188] The news of a stand-alone Superman film were later confirmed by Dany Garcia, Cavill's manager.[189] While promoting Arrival, Amy Adams confirmed that work had begun on the screenplay.[190] In March 2017, it was announced that Matthew Vaughn was being eyed by Warner Bros. to direct.[191] In April 2018, it was reported that Christopher McQuarrie was considering directing the film but later dropped it.[192][193] In May 2019, however, Polygon reported that Vaughn is no longer in negotiations to direct the sequel, adding that the sequel was going to include some ideas Vaughn and Mark Millar initially pitched in 2008 for their proposed Superman trilogy, whose first film would have taken place mostly on Krypton.[194] In July 2019, McQuarrie revealed that he and Cavill had pitched a Superman film and a Green Lantern film for the studio, but they were rejected.[195] On January 2020, James Gunn said that he was offered to direct a Superman film, which he declined in favor of directing The Suicide Squad. However, he denied the film was going to be a sequel to Man of Steel.[196]