"It Was F***ing Good": Christopher McQuarrie Details Unmade "Epic" MAN OF STEEL 2 And GREEN LANTERN Movies

"It Was F***ing Good": Christopher McQuarrie Details Unmade "Epic" MAN OF STEEL 2 And GREEN LANTERN Movies

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning director Christopher McQuarrie has revealed new details about his plans for Man of Steel 2 and Green Lantern, including a "universe-expanding resolution."

By JoshWilding - May 26, 2025 09:05 AM EST
Filed Under: Man of Steel

Shortly after the release of Mission: Impossible - Fallout in 2018, we learned that filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie had approached Warner Bros. about helming interconnected Green Lantern and Superman movies.

The latter would have served as Man of Steel 2 following Zack Snyder's DCEU departure, with McQuarrie eager to reunite with Henry Cavill after the actor played the villainous CIA assassin August Walker. 

Josh Horowitz asked the director about his take on Superman, to which McQuarrie responded, "I'll never tell. I'll never tell, but boy was it f***ing good. It was f***ing good."

He'd go on to elaborate on his Man of Steel 2 pitch by revealing more about the outline he came up with for a Green Lantern reboot. "Green Lantern was what came to me. Green Lantern is a tough one," McQuarrie explained. "The power is...I cracked it, and it was fun watching him learn how to use that power and giving that power a flaw, so it was not pure invincibility."

"The whole concept of Green Lantern is that the ring has to be recharged. That's not a bug, it's a feature. Yes, you have infinite power, but you only have so much battery life, and that can run out at inconvenient times," he continued. "That, for me, solved the whole Green Lantern problem. The costume is another thing."

"I realised, don't worry about the costume, worry about the character. How do you give that character tension and stakes? Also, how do you do it with Superman?" McQuarrie noted. "Henry had a take on that, and I suddenly realised how these two characters had amazing similarities, which also allowed for amazing conflict and an amazing universe-expanding resolution."

We'll never know what he had planned, but Warner Bros. reportedly wanted McQuarrie to take another crack at Man of Steel 2 when Cavill returned to the DCEU in Black Adam. It's unclear how close that was to happening, especially as James Gunn started working on a Superman script shortly after shooting The Suicide Squad.

Ultimately, he was hired to write and direct Superman, and has since rebooted the DCU as DC Studios co-CEO (meaning Cavill's short-lived return came to nought). That led to McQuarrie's plans falling by the wayside.

McQuarrie, still reluctant to say too much, later dropped an intriguing tease about how his version of Man of Steel 2 opened. "I will tell you, the first 5 minutes of my Superman movie was...you remember Pixar's Up? [It was] a sequence with no dialogue that covered that character."

"[It] was a set-up, after which you knew exactly what makes Superman tick and exactly what Superman was most afraid of and why Superman made the choices he made. It would have been epic. The scale of the movie would have been absolutely extraordinary," he teased.

It's hard to shake the feeling that we missed out on something incredible here with McQuarrie's Superman plans. Still, with the Mission: Impossible franchise now wrapped up, there's always a chance he considers tackling another comic book movie. 

You can hear more from McQuarrie in the player below.

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Fogs
Fogs - 5/26/2025, 9:25 AM
Well if WB (and snyder) wasn't so rushy with the whole thing... A MoS2 could've worked. One of the DCEU problems was it felt like a speedy MCU knockoff that, because they were clearly fearing those exact comparisons, didn't take the necessary time to build a cinematic universe.
krayzeman
krayzeman - 5/26/2025, 4:25 PM
@Fogs - WB thought because they had the most well know characters in comics history with Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman they thought there was no way they couldnt do Avengers number. Marvel had the lesser known heroes! WB seen dollars signs and rushed the process instead of building like Marvel did and thats why it ultimately failed IMO.
Fogs
Fogs - 5/27/2025, 8:48 AM
@krayzeman - Totally right. I have a DC diehard fan who couldn't accept Marvel's success because to him they just had "bad, unknown characters". Difference is his view doesn't have billions of dollars in business impact.
Fogs
Fogs - 5/27/2025, 8:49 AM
*I have a friend who is a diehard DC fan, I meant.
captainwalker
captainwalker - 5/26/2025, 9:26 AM
And now we have a cgi dog and a baggie, collared costume.
IAmAHoot
IAmAHoot - 5/26/2025, 9:27 AM
His words on Green Lantern are already intriguing enough.
Gabimaru
Gabimaru - 5/26/2025, 9:47 AM
WB tried to play catch up with marvel at the time. I was expecting a man of steel 2 just like how they did to batman trilogy with nolan. I had some nitpick in the film sure but every cast did an amazing job and cavill own the role. I wish they naturally progressed his take on superman and made a trilogy out of him
BruceWayng
BruceWayng - 5/26/2025, 9:48 AM
One of the dumbest moves Snyder made in the DCEU was making Superman so stoic and depressing-especially when Cavil seems like a genuinely positive and kindhearted person in real life.

Snyder should’ve used BvS to juxtapose the two characters, showing how one is an older, jaded veteran taking care of truly terrible villains in a dark and corrupt city while the other was a cheerful new hero who received love and praise from the masses as he saved his city from otherworldly threats. One was viewed as a vigilante while the other was seen as a hero.
epc1122
epc1122 - 5/26/2025, 11:01 AM
@BruceWayng - I agree and like your premise to Batman v Superman. On a side note, I thought Bruce timm’s worlds finest was a great introduction to their team up.
krayzeman
krayzeman - 5/26/2025, 4:30 PM
@BruceWayng - I will always argue that that movie was title Man of Steel and not "Superman" for a reason. It wasnt about Superman. He was learning to be a hero and had we gotten to a 3rd movie the character would have probably earned the Superman mantle.
TheJok3r
TheJok3r - 5/26/2025, 9:48 AM
One or both of these movies may have helped salvage the DCEU.
Reeds2Much
Reeds2Much - 5/26/2025, 9:49 AM
you remember Pixar's Up?

N ... no.
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TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 5/26/2025, 12:04 PM
@Reeds2Much - ?feature=shared

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Irregular
Irregular - 5/26/2025, 9:56 AM
If I had to guess what type of story he had concocted for these two films, he was going to strip them both of their powers and make them go on a self-discovery journey as an action/adventure spectacle.

GL: Him talking about how his ring has a "battery" meaning he was thinking of other ways to make it an action adventure with high stakes that didn't involve him wearing the ring because, he has low battery.

Superman: It sounds like Henry's pitch had striking similarities to how he saw Hal Jordan, which if I had to guess it would of been something similar in New 52 where Superman lost his powers and became a vigilante without a mask. Upping the stakes which is evident in his Mission Impossible films.
Timerider
Timerider - 5/26/2025, 10:17 AM
It’s funny how WB and everyone in general can’t handle two DC universes at the theater at the same time running concurrently together. Like we can’t figure out that Cavill is not in James Gunn’s DC universe. We’re not idiots.

Imagine getting Man of Steel 2, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman 3, Aquaman 3, Black Adam vs Superman and Justice League 2.

Oh well, what could have been.
TheJok3r
TheJok3r - 5/26/2025, 10:45 AM
@Timerider - Every DCEU movie after 2018's Aquaman was making less than half a billion at the box office.
DTor91
DTor91 - 5/26/2025, 1:41 PM
@Timerider - People on this site need to remember this goes way beyond our bubble. These films need so much more than comic fans to thrive. General audiences absolutely would question why there will have to be so many simultaneous Supermen films if a direction like that were taken, and it would have become a bigger mess on what was already a mess. In no conceivable way does a strategy like that work. And frankly, it’s stupid. Way too crowded, and leans heavily into the kinds of problems that plague the comics as is already.

Plus, financially, that would be the biggest disaster in Hollywood history lol. Every single film would have to profit to pull that off and that would never happen. WB could barely hold it together as is with Zaslav in charge, that would be the final nail. Not to mention, look at all the hurdles just distributing a Superman film has to go through. Every Superman release has had to undergo lawsuits from the family estates….imagine several Superman films at once.

UnderBelly
UnderBelly - 5/26/2025, 10:22 AM
Man you can see how excitement Cavill was on his announcement. He knew he had some good shit to deliver....till he didn't.

Is this still The Rock's fault. Lol
bkmeijer1
bkmeijer1 - 5/26/2025, 10:35 AM
Wonder what the DCEU had looked like of WB gave McQuarrie the keys then and there. Would've been cool to see Tom Cruise as Hal Jordan. Maybe one day Gunn'll hire McQuarrie
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 5/26/2025, 12:23 PM
@bkmeijer1 - Cruise as an older Hal would have been great (though I do like the Kyle Chandler casting aswell)

I could see Gunn going after McQuarrie given the filmmakers like James Mangold he’s gotten
bkmeijer1
bkmeijer1 - 5/26/2025, 12:33 PM
@TheVisionary25 - yeah, I like the Chandler casting as well. And kinda forgot about Mangold. Hope Swamp-Thing gets made
DannyBrandy20
DannyBrandy20 - 5/26/2025, 11:09 AM
I would've been more excited for Superman movie if Christopher McQuarrie was the one directing it
epc1122
epc1122 - 5/26/2025, 10:36 PM
@DannyBrandy20 - I don’t think I’d be more excited per se bc I can’t wait for the new movie, but I’m definitely interested in McQuarrie’s take with Cavill starting. While
I enjoyed Man of steel and aspects to Batman v Superman and Justice League, I’d like to see what Cavill would have done with a different director/script. I think we saw it briefly with Whedon and black Adam.
xKingLobox
xKingLobox - 5/26/2025, 11:58 AM
The Flaw being "battery life" isn't THE flaw it's a flaw, and feels cliche'. The real flaw is inability to gauge an opponent, situation or whatever they are doing and conjure the amount of power needed. This is why Superman is able to often breakthrough GL's constructs, because he doesn't have the willpower at full blast 100% of the time. The flaw is, regardless of power/color, is that the underlying well of emotion isn't infinite and or has degrees accessibility.
KennKathleen
KennKathleen - 5/26/2025, 12:08 PM
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I would've loved to see how it went...
ModHaterSLADE
ModHaterSLADE - 5/26/2025, 12:29 PM
Always did want a Man of Steel 2 with Brainiac, oh well.
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 5/26/2025, 12:36 PM
Interesting , it sounds good from the little details he gave!!

After seeing Final Reckoning last night , I really noticed even moreso how effective McQuarrie can be at conveying intention & information without dialogue (even if a movie has tons of exposition like the Mission films) so I hope to atleast learn more about that Up-esque opening sequence for Superman in the future or perhaps even see it down the line.
THEDARKKNIGHT1939
THEDARKKNIGHT1939 - 5/26/2025, 2:15 PM
Oh course it was good. That's why WB rejected it.

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