Back in November, Matthew McConaughey said he'd be down for a comic book movie and was reportedly being eyed to play Doctor Strange before Benedict Cumberbatch landed the role. But has he actually been approached by Marvel or DC about possibly starring in one of their films?
It appears he has, as the actor recently told Variety that he's had talks with both Marvel and DC, and he has read some superhero film scripts.
I’ve read some Marvel and DC scripts and I’ve talked about working with them on some scripts, none of which I’ll share with with you what they are — or were. Yeah, I’ve circled some of those. Nothing has been right for me yet. But I’m sure open to it.
McConaughey went on to explain what would convince him to do a comic book movie.
It’s very simple for me. I look at the script. Is the opportunity exciting? Is the money that comes with it exciting? Sure. Is it the possibility of going, “Hey you can get on a train and it can be a franchise and you could do 3, 4, 5, and have a great time as some kind of superhero or anti-hero.” But I would also look at something like that and say, “Hey, in success that means you are on the train for a while.” Contractually, you’re going to return to the character over and over. It’s something I asked myself is it something I’d want to return to. Would I be excited to go back and put the shoes on the character again? Going and doing the press tour with that group of people again? I always ask myself those questions again. It starts with the story and character.
The actor was also asked why many major studios aren't that interested in making lower budget films anymore.
Lets go through it. You have the huge tentpole action: Marvel, DC Comics, “Avengers,” “Iron Man,” etc. After that, what do you got? At the bottom of that, you’ve got a “Dallas Buyers Club,” where you don’t even have $5 million to do it. You’ve got to do it in 27 days. The films I’ve been making are mid-budget or low-budget dramas. There are no superheroes. There are no franchises. Those were early to get made in the late ’80s, early ’90s. Robert Zemeckis and I met a few months ago, and he was like, “You could never make ‘Contact’ again today, because no studio will budget it.
Some will argue that Christopher Nolan was able to make INTERSTELLAR (which many have compared to CONTACT) but that was after the director made over $2.3 billion dollars for Warner Bros. with his The Dark Knight trilogy. I still don't know which comic book character would be a good fit for McConaughey, but I know I'm not the only one who would love it if he joined the Marvel or DC cinematic universe.
Matthew McConaughey's THE SEA OF TREES doesn't have a release date yet (although it premiered last week at Cannes to mixed reactions from the audience), but his American Civil War drama THE FREE STATE OF JONES is set to open on March 11, 2016.