'Foundation' Creator & 'Dark Knight' Trilogy's David S. Goyer On His Influences

The Film That Lit My Fuse is a Deadline video series that aims to provide an antidote to headlines about industry uncertainty by swinging the conversation back to the creative ambitions, formative influences and inspirations of some of today’s great screen artists.

Every installment asks the same five questions. Today’s subject is David S. Goyer, the writer, director, producer, novelist and comic book artist who just did the impossible. Goyer turned the Isaac Asimov science fiction classic Foundation into an epic series for Skydance TV and Apple TV+. This was a novel that spent so much time in development hell under the creative direction of some of Hollywood’s top talents that it seemed likely it would never happen. Last month, Apple just renewed the series for a second season. Also out today is Antlers, the Scott Cooper-directed genre film he produced along with Guillermo del Toro and J. Miles Dale.

Goyer’s career began as a prolific adaptor of superhero tales. It perhaps wasn’t a surprise path because he read comics so voraciously growing up that some of his pointed and opinionated critiques were published as letters to the editor in the issues. Goyer’s superhero credits include the Blade trilogy that starred Wesley Snipes, Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy that starred Christian Bale, Man of Steel, Zack Snyder’s Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and numerous others. He made his directing debut on Zig Zag and directed Blade: Trinity, The Invisible and The Unborn. He also co-wrote three Call of Duty video games between 2010 and 2020.

Watch as he describes how the overwhelming impressions left by the John Huston film The Man Who Would Be King with Sean Connery and how it forged a kid from a working-class Michigan household to dream big.