It’s The Dark Knight Returns” and will feature the two title superheroes squaring off. Thus it would be assumed the title would be Batman vs. Superman, but no, not “vs.” and not “versus”, the latter of which would only add another “s” where it already had one too many, and what’s with the period?
But hold off, it’s not even going to be Batman v Superman, because that would imply this was a single film, and not part of a cinematic multiverse. No, it’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and director Zack Snyder tells “Empire” magazine why the need for the subtitle in a new cover story that also delivers a batch of new pictures.
Before I get too far ahead of myself, though, let’s understand these are complicated matters and while we can pretty much rest assured the film itself will spell most everything out, Snyder discusses the theory behind Batman and the threat he sees in the arrival of Superman:
“We want to assume that Batman has reached this point in his life and career as a superhero, and Superman represents a sort of philosophical change. He is a paradigm shift for Batman: ‘I’ve been fighting criminals all my life, trying to find justice, and now I am confronted with a concept that is transcendent to me.’ In the face of Superman, a man robbing a bank doesn’t matter.”
[amz asin=”B0064W66HY” size=”small”]You see, Batman is an old feller in this one and Ben Affleck was hesitant at first to play the role, believing he may in fact be too old for the part. “Initially I thought, ‘I’m older, it doesn’t seem like the right sort of fit for me,'” Affleck told “Empire”, before Snyder convinced him otherwise. “Then Zack pitched me his concept for this older, more broken, kind of fucked up Batman. It was something we haven’t seen. We have seen that Batman is willing to cross the line to protect people. That vigilantism has been a part of his character all along, and we are tapping into that mentality when faced by something as potentially as deadly a Superman.”
Snyder suggests Batman could be viewed as a villain, but your point of view approaching the film and narrative will be the determining factor while adding, “That is why Dawn of Justice is the full title. What it does is allow us to start this conversation.” Ahhhhh, so the reason for this movie is so you can make another movie, the one you actually wanted to make… got it.
“What we are doing is ground up all the way. It is one giant story. The first thing we had was the Justice League concept. The other movies, in a way, have to support that. That is our Wonder Woman, our Aquaman. They have their own creative concepts that supports them, but they do serve Justice League in the coming together of those heroes. I want all the other directors of the other films to be able to stretch their legs and do what they want, but at the same time there is a big interconnected universe. I have given everyone amazing access to our story, to me, and what we are doing. All the films have like minded conceptual jumping on points.”
I don’t want to shit all over this before we ever really see what exactly Snyder and Co. have in store, but this style of storytelling just doesn’t really appeal to me. This idea of telling one story just so you can tell another story. What’s wrong with working one film at a time and going from there? Snyder says they are going “ground up all the way”, but everything he says after that suggests they started at the top and have worked their way down. It’s smart to outline where you want things to go, but this just sounds like the only thing they knew is they wanted to have Justice League Part One in theaters by 2017 and from there they just needed to figure out what origin stories they needed to tell in order to get there.
We’ll see how this will all shape out come the release of Batman v Superman on Mar 25, 2016 followed by Suicide Squad in August 2016. From there it’s Wonder Woman, then Justice League, The Flash, Aquaman and so on and so on.
