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BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN Director Zack Snyder Discusses Reintroducing Batman, The Trinity’s Costumes, Modernizing Superman And More

Forbes recently landed an extensive interview with director Zack Snyder, who is currently preparing to begin filming on Batman vs. Superman. Of course, he discussed the hotly anticipated superhero project. When asked if he ever thought he would end up rebooting Batman after being hired for Man of Steel, Snyder revealed the process of including the Dark Knight in the Superman reboot’s sequel. Spoiler alert – contrary to (flawed) popular opinion, it had nothing to do with Man of Steel‘s reception. “I gotta be honest, it definitely was a thing that… after Man of Steel finished and we started talking about what would be in the next movie, I started subtly mentioning that it would be cool if he faced Batman. In the first meeting, it was like, “Maybe Batman?” Maybe at the end of the second movie, some Kryptonite gets delivered to Bruce Wayne’s house or something. Like in a cryptic way, that’s the first time we see him. But then, once you say it out loud, right? You’re in a story meeting talking about, like, who should [Superman] fight if he fought this giant alien threat Zod who was basically his equal physically, from his planet, fighting on our turf…  You know, who to fight next? The problem is, once you say it out loud, then it’s kind of hard to go back, right? Once you say, “What about Batman?” then you realize, “Okay, that’s a cool idea. What else?” I mean, what do you say after that? …But I’m not gonna say at all that when I took the job to do Man of Steel that I did it in a subversive way to get to Batman. I really believe that only after contemplating who could face [Superman] did Batman come into the picture.” 


Talk then turned to celebrating Batman’s 75th anniversary this year, with Batman vs. Superman set for Wonder Woman’s 75th – perfect time for her big screen debut. Snyder comments on seeing the new Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman costumes side-by-side for the first time, calling it “epic”. “We just went through Superman’s 75th, and it was very exciting… and to me, it was just really awesome. And the idea of having the Batman 75th and the Wonder Woman 75th together is kind of an amazing thing, too… The thing also that’s really fascinating for me is that, even just in the tests we’ve been doing, the costumes, right? You basically have Batman and Superman — and this is without Ben [Affleck] and Henry [Cavill] in the costumes, but just like the stand-ins, just testing to see what the costumes look like. And  you have them standing there and they’re standing in the same shot — and then we have Wonder Woman, you know, all three of them in the same shot. Even just for a test, you really have to go, “Wow, that’s crazy!” Not only is it the first time that I’m seeing them, it’s the first time they’ve ever existed together on screen in a movie. And that’s kind of a huge deal. Even just Batman and Superman standing next to each other… [I]t’s kind of epic. You do sort of sense the weight of the pop culture iconography jumping out of its skin when you’re standing there looking at the two of them and Wonder Woman. It’s crazy. But it’s fun. I mean, I have the first photo, I’ve got it in my archive because I was like, “Okay, I better keep this, it’s gonna be worth something!”” 

And when will we finally get our first look at these costumes? “Unfortunately, I don’t even know the timeline… Because the movie takes place so far from now, it’s hard to know exactly. That all gets tied to marketing and strategies for the movie. It’s not just a free-for-all, which I’d love it to be. Because I take a picture of the suit with my camera– I’m actually staring at one right now in my office. And it’s just massive on my wall in my office and it’s epic, let me tell you! And I’m like, “God, I want to send this to the Internet immediately.” But I know I’m not allowed to! I do value the sort of excitement of the way the film is [revealed]… the pieces that are released and sort of trickle out to everybody, and those reveals are exciting milestones for us.”




Snyder goes on to discuss the process of modernizing Superman in Man of Steel, and making the iconic hero and his world “real”. When that film was released last summer, many fans and reviewers criticized it for being too different from the Christopher Reeve Superman era, among other issues. Snyder addresses these complaints, and reaffirms that his Superman is not as different from the comics’ as many claim. “I think with Superman we have this opportunity to place this icon within the sort of real world we live in. And I think that, honestly, the thing I was surprised about in response to Superman was how everyone clings to the Christopher Reeve version of Superman, you know? How tightly they cling to those ideas, not really the comic book version but more the movie version… If you really analyze the comic book version of Superman, he’s killed, he’s done all the things– I guess the rules that people associate with Superman in the movie world are not the rules that really apply to him in the comic book world, because those rules are different. He’s done all the things and more that we’ve shown him doing, right? It’s just funny to see people really taking it personally… because I made him real, you know, I made him feel, or made consequences [in] the world.” Well spoken. There’s even more of Forbes’ interview with Snyder, where he talks about his love for Batman, Watchmen, and DC’s supposed rivalry with Marvel. For that, click the link above.

Batman vs. Superman (not the final title) is scheduled to hit theaters May 6th, 2016. The follow-up to Man of Steel, the next installment in the DC Cinematic Universe stars Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck, Amy Adams, Gal Gadot, Jesse Eisenberg, Callan Mulvey, Tao Okamoto, Holly Hunter, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, and Laurence Fishburne. Zack Snyder directs from a script by David S. Goyer and Chris Terrio.

Founder and Editor-in-Chief of WOBAM! Entertainment.