But What About Green Lantern, Christopher McQuarrie?

Earlier today, we shared with you an interview with Mission: Impossible director Christopher McQuarrie which centered around whether or not he would (or even be interested) do a Man of Steel sequel film with Henry Cavill.

That wasn’t even all of the superhero talk, either, as our friends over at Collider also shared McQuarrie’s comments on the long-standing Tom Cruise as Green Lantern rumors as well.

“Every couple of months it’s ‘Tom Cruise is in Green Lantern, which means McQuarrie must be directing,’ or ‘McQuarrie is directing Green Lantern, which means Tom Cruise must be in it.’ I had a conversation with the previous regime about Green Lantern. I’m not a comic book guy. I’m a story guy.

So I don’t care if it’s Superman, or Green Lantern, or some superhero you’ve never heard of, to me it always comes down to, is there a good story? And can we make a good movie out of it? I don’t really have that kind of… that comic book fan, thing. Which, I think, and I’ll get myself into trouble, I think that’s one of the things that’s kind of crippling those movies, is everybody’s got these moments in a comic book that they want to see put into a movie. That’s not always necessarily the most cinematic thing, or the movie has to jump through hoops to get it. And I watched as other franchise movies try really hard to keep stuff that’s canon, and strangles the movie to death, and I’ve been in meetings where I’m like, ‘Can we just move this?’ ‘No, no, no, don’t move that! Don’t! Seven people saw that in a comic book ten years ago! It’s established! It’s canon!’ And I was like, ‘But the movie sucks. Can we just do it?’ ‘No you can’t!”

That’s kind of the world that it’s in, and when I came in on Green Lantern I was like, ‘Here’s how I would do Green Lantern,’ and they were like, ‘Ah, but you know,’ and I said, ‘Well, that’s what I would do,’ and they said, ‘Well, will you direct it?’ And I said, ‘No, ’cause there’s no script.’ And they said, ‘Well you write the script,’ and I said, ‘But I may not be the guy to direct,’ like don’t make it a McQuarrie movie, make it the greatest Green Lantern you can make it.

We don’t know what that is tonally. We don’t know what any of that stuff is until we get under the hood, and I may be the worst guy in the world. You may end up with Tim Burton’s Green Lantern, and I don’t have that pride of authorship. I’m not the guy who comes in and goes, ‘It’s mine, from the visionary director.’ Bullshit fuckin’ words. You’re a director! You’re a visionary, that’s your job.

Only time (and a good story) will tell.