Christopher McQuarrie reveals a Green Lantern pitch for the Man of Steel sequel

Christopher McQuarrie worked with the Man of Steel star Henry Cavill on Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018), the sixth entry in this franchise that showed Cavill's character fighting with (and against) Ethan Hunt. By the time they started filming it, Cavill had already been in three DCEU projects as Superman.

At the time, Christopher McQuarrie also had plans to get his own Man of Steel sequel off the ground. He was also considered to herald a Green Lantern project, but unfortunately, neither could see the light of day. During a recent conversation with interviewer Josh Horovitz for The Final Reckoning, McQuarrie shared some details about his ideas for these DC projects. When asked what his Superman pitch was, McQuarrie said,

"I'll never tell but boy it was fu**ing good! And Green Lantern was what had come to me. Green Lantern's a tough one — the power and the weakness — and I cracked it and it was fun watching him learn and giving that power a flaw so that it was not pure invincibility."

He also spoke about his vision for Green Lantern.

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

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McQuarrie also pointed out that he chose to focus on developing their character more than figuring out what their costumes would look like. He spoke with Cavill about bringing tension and stakes to Superman's arc.

"Henry had a take on that. I suddenly realized how they (Superman and Green Lantern officers) had amazing similarities, which also allowed for amazing conflict and an amazing universe-expanding resolution"

However, McQuarrie did spill some beans about his idea behind the Man of Steel sequel.

"The first five minutes of my Superman movie [was supposed to be like] Pixar's Up [with] a sequence with no dialogue that covered that character's [key details]. The first five minutes of the movie was a setup that made you realize exactly what made Superman tick, exactly what Superman was most afraid of, and why Superman made the choices that he made. It would have been epic. In five minutes, the scale of the movie would have been absolutely extraordinary."

What happened to Christopher McQuarrie's Man of Steel movie?

A few years ago, Mission: Impossible director Christopher McQuarrie was considered for DC's Green Lantern movie, which was supposed to come out in 2020. However, that project didn't materialize, nor did McQuarrie's idea for a Man of Steel sequel.

In a previous interview, McQuarrie spoke about why he never went ahead with his Superman movie at Warner Bros.

"Too complicated to explain. It tied into the Superman movie that Cavill and I were proposing. No takers. The studios have never cared for my original ideas. They prefer that I fix their broken ones."

In another conversation with Collider, McQuarrie pointed out that there was no script or vision for how they wanted the movie to look. That is why his version of Man of Steel or Green Lantern never came to fruition.