Brief reply: they did not. The DCEU did not exist as an idea when “Man of Metal” first went into growth in 2008, which was the identical 12 months that Christopher Nolan’s “The Darkish Knight” made greater than a billion {dollars} on the field workplace. On the time, it was the highest-grossing superhero film ever made. So, when Nolan pitched an concept for a Superman film to the studio, based mostly on discussions along with his “Darkish Knight” trilogy co-writer David S. Goyer, Warner Bros. virtually bit his hand off. Nolan signed on as a producer, Goyer was employed to put in writing the script, and all that was left was to discover a director (Nolan nonetheless needed to ship “The Darkish Knight Rises” for 2012, so he could not do it).
Plenty of well-known names have been thought of for the director’s chair on “Man of Metal,” from Guillermo del Toro to Ben Affleck. However Nolan finally settled on younger hotshot (44 is younger in director years) Zack Snyder. Watching “Watchmen” had satisfied him that Snyder had an “innate aptitude for coping with superheroes as actual characters.” As Nolan defined to the New York Occasions in 2013, “That was what a brand new method to Superman required. He understands the ability of iconic photographs, however he additionally understands the individuals behind them.” Warner Bros. had a billion causes to belief Nolan’s judgment, so Snyder was introduced on board as a director in 2010.
Even with out Nolan’s endorsement, Snyder was a sensible selection. “300” was a large field workplace success that got here out of nowhere. “Watchmen” might have flopped, but it surely was removed from a complete catastrophe, and there have been loads of components in charge for its underperformance. It was rated R, it had no well-known film stars among the many forged, and no well-known superheroes among the many characters. A studio exec may simply conclude that the model of “Watchmen” utilized to a well-known character like Superman and sanded right down to a four-quadrant-friendly PG-13 ranking was the proper recipe for field workplace success. And they might be confirmed proper when Snyder’s “Man of Metal” grossed $670 million worldwide — nearly $300 million greater than Nolan’s DC debut, “Batman Begins,” had made.
In the meantime, over in Marvelville, “The Avengers” had grossed a really absurd $1.5 billion on the field workplace, stealing the crown for highest-grossing superhero film from “The Darkish Knight” by a substantial margin. It is little marvel that Warner Bros. caught the cinematic universe fever. “What Zack and Chris have completed with this movie is will let you actually introduce different characters into the identical world,” Warner Bros. Footage Group’s then-president Jeff Robinov teased in an interview with Leisure Weekly.
The studio needed its personal comedian e book mega-franchise, and Snyder was already within the studio, revving his engines. After “Man of Metal” succeeded, Warner Bros. fired the beginning pistol for him. Frankly, it might have been silly to not.