Batman v Superman was pitched as this mega battle between two iconic DC superheroes and rightly so, this should have been an epic spectacle that would upset Marvel’s calculations but it was a mixed bag at best. It opened to the worldwide box office with a promise to set the cash registers ringing but it turned out to be way short of expectations. Honestly, it was quite a disappointment for many, fans and critics alike. The strongest character in the movie was Ben Affleck’s Batman but Man of Steel and Lex Luthor were botched up big time.
The movie claimed to have adapted Frank Miller’s iconic graphic novel ‘Dark Knight Returns’ but it failed miserably to give a fitting tribute to it. It seemed more like a Batman movie which was wrongly positioned as a Superman sequel. The fact that “Martha” was a great unifier was pretty lame. The trailer had already exposed Doomsday as the villain so it was no surprise when he appeared. Overall, it did not expand the DCEU brand as fans expected it.
In fact, Henry Cavill aka Superman admitted to mistakes being made in DCEU and promised to correct them in the future but Justice League wasn’t mind-blowing either. Here is what he said:
“There was a style they were going for, an attempt to be different and look at things from a slightly different perspective, which hasn’t necessarily worked.”
He added:
“Yes, it has made money but it has not been a critical success; it hasn’t given everyone that sensation which superheroes should give the viewer. I feel like now the right mistakes have been made and they haven’t been pandered to, and we can start telling the stories in the way they need to be told. It is even better to come back from a mistake or stylistic error into the correct vein because it will make it seem that much stronger. Wonder Woman was the first step in the right direction.”
In the hindsight, we believe that Zack Snyder’s DCEU would have been something else until it wasn’t. Right from the beginning with Man of Steel, and then converting it into a shared Universe with Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, Snyder had a vision set for DC’s big characters and how they came into contact with the Universe overall in the most ultimate way possible, but he was stopped before he could conclude the things he began with Justice League 2.
A month back, things started to unravel about Zack Snyder’s departure from Justice League, as many reports claimed that Zack Snyder was fired from the movie way before his daughter’s tragic death, and WB used that incident to cover it all up. Instead of being upfront about the fact that WB was pressing for major changes in Snyder’s script and hence the re-shoots, the actors were asked to downplay it and they did.
So, the movie was bound to bomb as there was a lot happening behind the scenes. Zack Snyder’s silence actually proves it all right as he denied doing any sort of press tours or interviews for the movie and he even supported the petition for releasing the Snyder Cut.
WB meddled a lot with the movie, as they got Joss Whedon to make the movie they actually wanted out of Snyder’s existing vision. Even though the movie did not do as well as expected, it was certainly a step in the right direction as it did have heart and humor, and it got all its character interactions right.
But due to the changes that WB ordered on Snyder’s vision in order to bring the movie down to 2 hours or less, a lot of material that we saw in the trailers was either reshot or removed entirely in order to make it suit more to the shorter time span.
Justice League suffered a lot behind the scenes due to this particular reason and the same thing happened with Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. BvS received a lot of backlash for its theatrical cut as WB’s editing team edited almost 30 minutes of the movie that helped the plot in a great way, and thankfully, Zack Snyder got his ultimate cut through which people loved.
When WB saw that Snyder intended the same thing for Justice League and even the sequel, so they let him go and totally altered his great vision, and as a result, Justice League did not even manage to make any profits, it is now the lowest grossing DCEU movie of all time. It’s ironical as JL was supposed to break all box office records. As a result, the sequel to the movie is almost dead since the brand is now tainted.
Now, Zack Snyder is coming out revealing details of about BvS and Justice League that would have connected with Justice League 2, and Snyder has confirmed one more detail about BvS which the fans questioned a lot about. Many viewers were confused with the nightmare sequence in BvS, as the biggest scene that creating a number of questions in that sequence was The Flash coming back in time to warn Bruce about Lois.
Fans did not understand that whether this particular sequence was real, or did Flash really come back in time to warn Bruce. This whole sequence was probably put in the movie to obviously set up the future movies, but it also helped the narrative of the movie as it explained the title “Batman V Superman” as well.
But now, Justice League 2 is probably dead, so we will not see the Flash Back in time sequence be paid any homage to. It was already ignored in Justice League, and Justice League 2 will not include anything about it if it does get made ultimately. But we already know what will be featured in Justice League 2 as the post-credits of Justice League revealed it to be “Injustice League”.
In the scene, Deathstroke was freed from prison by Lex Luthor who then suggested him that they should have their own killer league if they have to take on Justice League. He said: “We have to level the playing field. To put it plainly, shouldn’t we have a league?”
Still, Zack Snyder has come out and confirmed that whether the Flash sequence in Batman v Superman was real or not. A ‘Vero’ app user talked about the fact that Flash warning Bruce sequence was totally real and he presented evidence to it as well. Zack Snyder replied to his comment stating that this sequence was “Real” and not at all a dream for Bruce.
Well, we would have loved to see something related to this happen in Justice League, and it may have before Joss Whedon was asked to alter it, but unfortunately, we will never see anything related to it happen anymore. The DC movies are going through huge changes with Walter Hamada coming in to handle the DC movies at WB, and hopefully, now things will go smoothly without WB meddling with the Director’s vision.
Aquaman is scheduled to come out on December 21, 2018; Shazam! will open on April 5, 2019; and Wonder Woman 2 will hit the theatres on November 1, 2019. Still, if you are a DC fan you would like the Blu Ray version of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice which you can grab from your favorite music store.
Here is the official synopsis for the movie as released by DC and WB:
“It’s been nearly two years since Superman’s (Henry Cavill) colossal battle with Zod (Michael Shannon) devastated the city of Metropolis. The loss of life and collateral damage left many feeling angry and helpless, including crime-fighting billionaire Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck). Convinced that Superman is now a threat to humanity, Batman embarks on a personal vendetta to end his reign on Earth, while the conniving Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) launches his own crusade against the Man of Steel”.
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