Zack Snyder helped Christopher Nolan with an iconic Interstellar look

Christopher Nolan’s films have a very particular aesthetic. Although he works in genres where heavy CGI is the norm, he values ​​location shooting, virtually staged action, and, of course, the kind of rich tactile imagery that only film, not digital, can provide (unfortunately). a price). reel length 11 miles). There’s a reason why many moviegoers travel great distances to see their movies screened in 70mm IMAX and never leave disappointed.

Nolan’s aesthetic preferences were challenged like never before when he took on “Interstellar.” The deep space exploration film, based on the brilliant work of astrophysicist Kip Thorne, promised to be an intelligent piece of science fiction in the vein of classics like “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Solaris” (by Tarkovsky or Soderbergh ). “Interstellar” ended up harking back to those films here and there, but in reality, it was uniquely Nolan in its attempt to realistically depict what it would look and feel like to be trapped in a tesseract. It’s mind-blowing stuff, and for us to accept his big leaps, Nolan first had to connect us to a near-future version of Earth that felt inhabited.

To achieve this, Nolan watched…Zack Snyder’s “Man of Steel”?

In an interview with The Daily BeastNolan revealed that when it came to building a realistically functioning farm, he consulted with Snyder, who had had to build his own when filming the Nolan-produced “Man of Steel.” Nolan explained his thought process as follows:

“That all-American iconography has always been so potent in the Superman mythos. It was in the script (for “Interstellar”) before I came on the project; (Chrisotpher’s brother, Jonathan Nolan) was developing the script for Steven Spielberg directed it, originally — and I think the Americana had made its way there. I certainly found it very useful when I realized we were going to have to grow our own corn.”

Nolan discovered that Snyder had grown 300 acres of corn to make the Kent farm look like a working farm. Say what you want about the movie (I’m a fan), but those wide shots of cornfields evoke the same kind of awe that Richard Donner conveyed in his 1978 “Superman.” So Nolan set to work and ended up with a harvest. abundant. As he told The Daily Beast, “We grew about 500 acres of corn and we actually sold it and ended up making a profit on it.”

So add that profit to what Paramount grossed when “Interstellar” earned $727 million on a $165 million budget (including the 2024 re-release). And let this be a lesson learned, aspiring filmmakers. If you want to make some kind of profit from your movie, place it on a farm.