Zack Snyder’s 2016 Superhero Movie Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was, famously, quite dark. But according to the author Chris Terrio, the studio’s original concept was darker: Ben Affleck’s Batman marks criminals in both versions, but Warner Bros. ‘original concept actually ended with Lex Luthor’s brand Batman (Jesse Eisenberg).
In a new interview, Terrio defends his text for both Batman v Superman and Justice League, which specifically states that the play of Justice League “Does not represent [his] work ”and that he wanted to remove his name from the film after seeing Joss Whedon’s rewrites.
After Man of steel appeared in 2013, David Goyer (Batman begins, Man of steel) was hired to write the screenplay for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Eventually, he left the project due to conflict planning, and Terrio was brought in to help with the tone of Affleck’s Batman character. Now, in a captivating interview with Vanity Fair, Terrio pushes back against the narrative that he is the one who makes the film as dark and grim as he is.
‘It looks like the studio is taking this position BvS that me writing was too dark and that was their problem, ”said Terrio. ‘But what they did not mention was that, for example, in the concept of the Batman / Superman text that WB developed -[which was] the concept I received when I joined the project – Batman not only branded criminals with a bat brand, but he too ended the movie by Lex Luthor. The ending was a point I explicitly went to the mat over and over again. I argued that Batman could not end the film to continue this behavior, which amounts to torture, because then the film endorses what he did. ”
The whole interview is absolutely worth reading, but I wanted to highlight another section that illustrates how much WB struggled to create a coherent behind-the-scenes story. Terrio says ‘there was never a thought of constructing the world before they issued this edict’ about the order of releases for the DC movies. “They said, ‘Meet this schedule.’ ‘”
“The Wonder Woman script was not even finished when I wrote Justice League, ”Terrio explained. ‘So I had no basis for writing Wonder Woman other than Batman / Superman. Themyscira did not even exist. I was never shown anything for it on the page. I did not know if people could talk underwater. That was something I had to ask because I did not know if I could do underwater scenes with Aquaman and Atlanteans. It was all just from scratch because there was no [solo] character films. So Justice League needed to establish three of the characters; it had to create a long game mythology for the DC universe. It had to revive Superman because he was dead at the end of the last movie. I just do not know how you could do it in less than two hours [as the studio mandated]. Maybe the 2017 release proved you couldn’t. ”
You can read the full interview here.
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