Zack Snyder’s fans will defend him to the hilt as the entirety of the Justice League saga has shown on innumerable occasions, but even his staunchest of supporters surely wouldn’t be able to claim with a straight face that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice isn’t a movie without its fair share of problems.
It’s certainly an ambitious if unwieldy epic, and the Ultimate Edition’s additional footage results in a much better flow to the story, but it’s far from a great film. There’s simply too much going on, with countless plot beats rushed through breathlessly to leave the entire narrative sagging under the weight of its own worldbuilding.
Then there’s the infamous Martha scene, which was intended to be an operatic moment of realization but ended up as a meme instead, something Snyder has finally made peace with. It polarized audiences and critics equally, but there’s still plenty of enjoyment to be found as the two title heroes eventually resolve their differences in time to team up for the requisite third act showdown.
In a new interview, Snyder revealed that Warner Bros. actually tried to pressure him to distance Justice League from Batman v Superman due to their apparent dissatisfaction with his previous comic book blockbuster, but before he departed the project for the first time, he was unwilling to acquiesce to their demands.
“I feel like the studio had this hatred for Batman v Superman. There was this pressure on me to divorce the movie from Batman v Superman, which I didn’t want to do, and which I didn’t do. Frankly, it’s a trilogy of movies, so it continues the story. The narrative is affected by the things that have gone before it and that way it’s able to realize this world that sets up the Darkseid invasion, for what was planned to be a five-movie arc. It definitely finishes with this version of the film, with our heroes having mended their personal wounds and joined together as a family.”
It’s been fascinating to get an insight into the goings on behind the scenes at Warner Bros. and DC Films as Snyder continues his one man marketing blitz for Justice League, and it’s turned out that the filmmaker faced a lot more pushback from the studio than first thought, but at least they didn’t end up interfering on Batman v Superman.
