Christopher Nolan is one of the most popular and respected directors working in Hollywood today. Not only does he make acclaimed epics like “Dunkirk”, but his films are also remarkably popular. “Oppenheimer” made nearly a billion dollars and won the best film at the Oscars. This mixture of financial success and industry distinctions is extremely rare. But Nolan was not always an A-Lister who could choose the projects he wanted essentially at will. Example: even if he does “The Odyssey” as we speak, he has already flirted with another Greek mythology film which ended up going to another director.
Recently, the writer David Goyer spoke with the podcast “Happy Sad Confused” in honor of the 20th anniversary of “Batman Begins”, which Nolan directed. “I had heard that Chris could develop a new Batman film and I remember saying to my agent:” Well, it will never happen, “said Goyer.” None of these guys could do it. “
For Goyer’s point, many writers had tried to take off a film “Batman” in Warner Bros. After the failure of Joel Schumacher’s “Batman & Robin”. Nolan became the man to get there, but it was only afterwards, according to Goyer, he was offered a beloved superhero of DC as a consolation price for not having achieved “Troy” from 2004. Here is what he had to say about this:
“The irony is that it seems that Batman was a consolation price for Chris because he had developed” Troy “. Then, at one point,” Troy “was distant and given to [Wolfgang Petersen]. I think Wolfgang Petersn had developed “Batman against Superman”, so I think they had an exchange. It was supposed to be the consolation price, I suppose. “”
Christopher Nolan Director Troy would have reshaped his career
There is a lot to unpack there, but let’s start with the fact that yes, Wolfgang Petersn was to direct an extremely dark version of “Batman against Superman” written by Andrew Kevin Walker (“Seven”) in the early 2000s, more than a decade before Zack Snyder made a reality with “Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice”. Let this version leave and Petersen ended up directing “Troy”, which featured Brad Pitt in a story of “The Iliad” by Homer.
Meanwhile, Nolan, who came out of “Memento” and “Insomnia”, then had the opportunity to remove a new film “Batman”. A 2013 article from Deadline revealed that “Nolan was going to lead” Troy “(released in 2004) but did not feel it”, and because he had always had an interest in Batman, he presented his point of view on the franchise to WB leaders. The rest belongs to the story, with “Batman Begins” from 2005 by completely reinventing the superhero on the big screen.
This opened the way to “The Dark Knight” of 2008, which remains one of the most acclaimed traditional blockbusters of all time, as well as “The Dark Knight Rises” of 2012, which was, for a certain time, the most expensive DC film of all time. However, this is not quite like, on the basis of the maturity report, that “Batman” was in a way a consolation price for Nolan. Anyway, it is interesting to consider a world where he made “Troy”, which was indeed a great film, instead of making “Batman Begins”, because it would have changed the whole trajectory of his career.
Meanwhile, Nolan is currently running “The Odyssey” for Universal Pictures, a Greek epic with a stacked cast which is also based on Homer’s works (to simplify, it is essentially a series of “Troy” events). As seriously, his flirt with “Troy” all these years ago, it is fascinating that everything is finished in a loop in a way or more than 20 years later.
“The Odyssey” is expected to go out in theaters on July 17, 2026.
