The films of Christopher Nolan they have a very special aesthetic. Although he works in genres where lots of computer-generated imagery is the norm, he values ​​location shooting, practically staged action and, of course, the kind of rich, tactile visuals that only film—not digital—can give you (on a roll length of 11 miles). There's a reason why many cinephiles travel great distances to see his films projected on 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, promises to be a smart piece of science fiction in the style of classics like "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Solaris" (by Tarkovsky or Soderbergh). "Interstellar" brought those films to mind here and there, but it was really only Nolan trying to realistically portray what being stuck in a tesseract would and would look like. It's an amazing thing, and in order to get us to meet its big leaps, Nolan had to first ground us in a near-future version of Earth that we felt like we were living in.

To achieve this, Nolan looked to 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 to build his own when filming Nolan's Man of Steel. Nolan explained his thought process this way:

"That all-American iconography has always been so powerful in the Superman mythos. It was in the script ('Interstellar') before I came to the project - (Chrisopher's brother, Jonathan Nolan) was developing the script for Steven Spielberg to direct, initially 'And I think Americana did it there, of course it was very helpful when I realized that we will have to grow our own corn.'

Nolan revealed that Snyder grew 300 acres of corn to make the Kent home feel like a working farm. Say what you will about the film (I'm a fan), but those cornfield shots evoke the same kind of awe in the heart that Richard Donner conveyed in his 1978 Superman. So Nolan got to seeding and ended up with a bumper. As he told The Daily Beast, "(W)e grew about 500 acres of corn and actually sold it and ended up making a profit on it."

So add that profit to what Paramount raked in when Interstellar grossed $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 on your film, put it on a farm.