Zack Snyder is set to begin filming the sequel to ‘Man of Steel’ in Detroit within weeks, but it’s been a bit quiet in terms of news breaking regarding the highly scrutinized film which will return Batman to the big screen following Christopher Nolan‘s ultra successful trilogy and will also deliver Wonder Woman to live action for the first time since beauty queen Lynda Carter last twirled into the famous corset and heels in the 70s.  The film isn’t due in theaters until 2016, which happens to be the 75th anniversary of Wonder Woman’s first comic book appearance, the 35th anniversary of the first Christopher Reeve ‘Superman’ movie and the 40th anniversary of Wonder Woman’s first live action appearance in the poorly received TV movie starring Cathy Lee Crosby.

Snyder spoke about his experience in film including touching on some elements about this sequel.  Lest we all forget, technically this movie is the sequel to ‘Man of Steel’ Snyder’s film which returned Superman to the big screen after the lackluster Bryan Singer film ‘Superman Returns’ failed to kick off a new franchise.  So how did Batman come to play such a major role?  Here’s what Snyder had to say:

After Man of Steel finished and we started talking about what would be in the next movie, I started subtly mentioning that it would be cool if he faced Batman. In the first meeting, it was like, “Maybe Batman?” Maybe at the end of the second movie, some Kryptonite gets delivered to Bruce Wayne’s house or something. Like in a cryptic way, that’s the first time we see him. The problem is, once you say it out loud, then it’s kind of hard to go back, right? Once you say, “What about Batman?” then you realize, “Okay, that’s a cool idea. What else?” I mean, what do you say after that? …But I’m not gonna say at all that when I took the job to do Man of Steel that I did it in a subversive way to get to Batman. I really believe that only after contemplating who could face [Superman] did Batman come into the picture.

He does admit to being a big fan of the Dark Knight and sites Frank Miller’s seminal ‘The Dark Knight Returns’ as a major influence on his view of comic books and their potential.

[The Dark Knight Returns] really made me see that comic books, and Batman specifically, could really reflect political and social concepts that I felt like maybe before I hadn’t imagined were possible. ‘Watchmen’, of course, I sort of see in the same light — that being, this comic that’s able to shed light on what I would say is our reality, but do it through the sort of metaphor and mythology of comic books, right?

Just in case you were curious, the costumes are done!  Snyder has seen them, although not on the movie’s stars and his reaction is quite enthusiastic.

The thing also that’s really fascinating for me is that, even just in the tests we’ve been doing, the costumes, right? You basically have Batman and Superman — and this is without Ben [Affleck] and Henry [Cavill] in the costumes, but just like the stand-ins, just testing to see what the costumes look like. And  you have them standing there and they’re standing in the same shot — and then we have Wonder Woman, you know, all three of them in the same shot. Even just for a test, you really have to go, “Wow, that’s crazy!” Not only is it the first time that I’m seeing them, it’s the first time they’ve ever existed together on screen in a movie. And that’s kind of a huge deal. [I]t’s kind of epic. You do sort of sense the weight of the pop culture iconography jumping out of its skin when you’re standing there looking at the two of them and Wonder Woman.

So at least the director is passionate about the project, so hopefully that passion will translate to a film that serves the very concept of arguably the three most iconic superheroes finally sharing the screen for the first time.  Though he doesn’t reveal much about the actual costumes or anything about the story does this insight into his influences and perspective give you a better idea of what we might be in store for when this movie finally arrives?

Source: Forbes