>>213677103
They had Nolan fresh off the biggest superhero trilogy in history, only equaled by the Spider-Man trilogy, and sold Man of Steel as being "Nolan Batman, but for Superman", with his name plastered all over it despite him being the producer and not the director. Now, Sucker Punch was absolute garbage, and 300 was memed up and successful but a rather polarizing film, but Watchmen was about as well received as an adaptation of a very dense work that had resisted multiple attempts to adapt it for decades, so the notion was that Snyder could do "good visuals and action", and if given a good script and supervision, should be good, and Nolan would take care of all that part. Snyder was not part of the big hype for Man of Steel, it was Nolan all the way. There was some trepidation over the helmer of 300 and Watchmen doing Superman as many fans didn't want a gritty realistic Superman trying to be dark and edgy, but plenty of others were worshipping the ground Nolan walked on at this stage. Green Lantern was a flop but it was seen as being an inferior copy of Iron Man, not Nolanesque.
The idea that Snyder was in some tough climate is absolute nonsense. It was Marvel that were in a tough period, with no access to Spider-Man or X-Men, their two most famous properties, and having to make do with less well known heroes in Iron Man, Thor, Captain America (with its own concerns), and trying to do what had not been done before and adapt a shared comic book universe to film. How does Iron Man in its grounded tone exist at the same time as Thor? This was an overwhelming concern back then. Even the super team of the Avengers was far less well known than Justice League, thanks to the various cartoons. Hell I thought of that shitty Uma Thurman movie first. And it's not like Thor and Cap 1 blew the roof off the box office, they did ok, at best. Incredible Hulk didn't do well at all.
That The Avengers exploded at the box office was not what people were predicting in 2011.
