Two years ago, Zack Snyder took San Diego Comic-Con by storm to announce that Batman would be joining Superman on screen for the first time in history in the sequel to 2013’s Man of Steel. That project has since evolved to become Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and is no longer a straight-forward follow-up, but instead a gateway into a larger cinematic shared universe that all leads into two massive Justice League team-up films.
That’s the shape of things now, but what of Snyder’s original plan? In an interview with Entertainment Weekly – which just released the very first still images from the film – he opened up about his original ideas and revealed that Metallo was meant to be the villain of Man of Steel 2, not Batman.
[zerg]“I remember talking about ‘What’s the next villain? We can’t do another alien invasion.’ Brainiac was definitely down the road. Metallo, I think, was going to be the main bad guy of this movie.”
Rumors have been swirling for some time now that Metallo – the iconic Superman foe famous for being a cyborg with a Kryptonite power source – would show up in Batman V Superman in some capacity, and that he may be played by Callan Mulvey (whose role still remains a highly-guarded secret). Snyder doesn’t say whether or not Metallo was written out completely (perhaps he just has a smaller role?), so maybe fans of the cyborg still have something to look forward to.
Regardless, Snyder’s comments give us a few hints at what may be on the horizon for the Big Blue Boyscout. We know that Warner Brothers wants a true Man of Steel sequel to arrive before 2020, so it’s possible that Metallo could show up in Man of Steel 2 after all. Snyder also drops that hint about Brainiac, who’s long been rumored as the villain for Justice League. Perhaps “down the road” means summer 2017?
Hopefully more will be revealed during WB’s Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con next week. In the meantime, feel free to leave your speculation about this news in the comments below.
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice will hit theaters, with or without Metallo, on March 25th, 2016.
