Before director Zack Snyder took left for San Diego Comic-Con 2012 to show off the first footage from Man of Steel, he visited his alma mater, the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles for a Q&A panel with the students. Here's what the filmmaker had to say about the overwhelming casting process he went through for this Superman adventure.

"We had about 500 guys initially. We did this massive auditioning madness. It got down to the usual suspects in a pretty quick order. Henry Cavill was actually the first one we physically tested on film. We actually tested him in the Christopher Reeve Superman suit. And that was a big deal. That's a hard suit to pull off. Trust me. If you're just standing there in that suit, it's dodgy. It felt like we just bought it a costume shop. Plus, there's no mask. I've been around a few superhero costumes, and it's weird because when you're in the Superman costume it's just you from the neck up. And somebody just combed your hair. But Henry came out of the trailer when we were shooting a test and everybody thought Okay, that's Superman. He was awesome and did a great job."

In related news, composer Hans Zimmer spoke about the bizarre road he took in signing on to score Man of Steel. He shot down rumors in late 2010 that he signed on, although he had a change of heart. We reported last month that he was confirmed to compose the score.

"When the rumours came out that I was going to do Superman, the fact was that nobody had asked me! The horrible thing was that I had never met Zack Snyder and, suddenly, poor Zack must have been reading that the crazy German is going to be doing my movie and I've never even met him! So, I had to squash those rumours. Plus - and let's be honest - I am only human and John Williams is super-human. That Superman theme is beloved and iconic. It's a pretty hard act to follow and it's like me saying to you can you turn this interview in to a decent piece of Shakespeare. You'll say 'Maybe not today...!'

I phoned Zack and said I am really, really sorry about these rumours - it wasn't me, it's just a misunderstanding. You've got your composer and I never tried to get in between relationships or anything like that. We started talking and he told me about his ideas for the character and his take was really interesting. I started getting a couple of ideas as a result. I said to Zack - and Warners and Chris (Nolan) and everyone involved - "don't talk to me about it until we finish [The Dark Knight Rises]. Within 15 minutes of finishing it, we were talking about it."

Finally, we also have word that the Man of Steel Comic-Con teaser has a runtime of one minute and 27 seconds. Stay tuned as we'll be bringing you this highly-anticipated video as soon as it's available.