Not to familiar with his work other than “The Usual Suspects”. Who would you want to direct TMiaHM?
Joss Whedon is about the only one I would really put ahead of others for me. Anyone else I can think of I don’t think would do an especially good job. Spielberg could be great or absolute trash like “War of the Worlds” as one example.
Whedon would be nice. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve liked Singer’s work in the past. But unless the script is super-tight, I just don’t think he’ll quite get it right. Maybe Ron Howard. I wouldn’t trust Spielberg with the property at all.
The key scenes that have to be right, IMO, are:
Authority busting the meeting, where Tiny gets his leg lazed off.
Introducing Mike to everybody, and the birth of “Adam Selene.”
The riots that trigger Der Tag.
The attack that “kills” Mike.
Everything else can be tweaked. It will have to be, for the movie to run under 8 hours. But if those scenes are pitch-perfect, the whole movie fails.