‘Batman V Superman’ 10 Years Later - The First DC Cinematic Crossover

This March is the 1o year anniversary of producer-director Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman, the follow-up to 2013’s Man of Steel and the kickoff of a larger shared world of superheroes. Penned by Chris Terrio (Oscar-winning screenwriter of 2012’s Best Picture winner Argo) as the first DC cinematic crossover, Batman v Superman earns even greater status among the patheons of the genre.

Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill star in "Batman v Superman."

Source: Warner

Batman v Superman - By The Numbers

First, a quick math lesson. Despite the final box office cume being below what was possible and what the studio wanted, Batman v Superman was undeniably a historic blockbuster and set records at the time in its $874 billion global box office run.

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The film is DC’s fifth-biggest earner of all time, and the four ahead of it include some of the heaviest hitters in superhero box office history: Aquaman with $1.15 billion, The Dark Knight Rises with $1 billion, Joker at $1 billion, and The Dark Knight at $1 billion (and at the time the first superhero movie to ever break the billion dollar barrier).

For those who like to dig down into it further, Batman v Superman’s global cume would be $1.2 billion adjust for today’s dollars. Before some of you fans ask, yes, that’s higher than the 1989 Batman’s $411 million adjust to $1.07 billion, but behind 1978’s Superman adjusting from $300 million to $1.4 billion.

At the time, Batman v Superman set a new record for the biggest superhero movie international opening with $254 million, and the biggest all-time worldwide box office debut for a superhero film with $420 million. People can try to “yeah but” about it all day long, but scoring the largest worldwide opening in superhero cinema history was a big deal. But that wasn’t all. It was also the fourth-biggest opening weekend for any type of movie, in any genre, at the time.

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The negative critical reception and large second-weekend fall at the box office created a panic at WB and a narrative in the mind of the press and public that would lead to further studio interference in the filmmaking and a decline in audience interest in the DCEU. But since that story has been well-told more than enough times, let’s not forget that in truth the DCEU’s first period with The Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman was pretty financially successful and included mostly blockbuster hits on par with Marvel Studios’ MCU movies.

Justice League is a special situation I’ll discuss separately shortly, but I have an article about that film and Zack Snyder’s Justice League on its fifth anniversary this year, so be sure to check that out.

That slate also earned mostly positive reviews overall, and if we include Batman v Superman (Ultimate Edition) and Suicide Squad (Extended Cut) the reviews were even more positive overall.

It’s easy to forget how especially historic Batman v Superman felt when it premiered. DC superheroes had never shared the movie screen together before, and we got the Trinity, the Big Three (Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman), fighting together in live action.

Marvel had been at this game already since 2008, so they were nine years deep into it, but DC was new to the game and determined to catch up quickly. Whatever complaints there are about trying to rush toward a team-up instead of building out solo origin films first, the fact is WB’s DCEU started in 2013 and within four total years had established its core team and put out a Justice League movie, all of which was mostly financially successful, if not at the level the studio hoped (I’ll get into more of the dollars and cents momentarily).

I still like the theatrical cut of Batman v Superman and personally was able to intuit from what we saw on screen all of the points and themes cut from the film by meddling studio executives. But the truth is, Batman v Superman (Ultimate Edition) restores Snyder’s film to its intended length and story, and all of the wonderful work Terrio put into writing that story, and it’s the only version I watch anymore. I consider it and Zack Snyder’s Justice League the only legitimate versions of their respective films now.

What I’ve come to realize is, by removing so much of the story about how Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent are tricked into thinking the other is a murderer and villainous, watching them fight and seeing Batman intending to literally murder Superman is just much harder to swallow for mainstream moviegoers.

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Fans hate this comparison, but consider the same year’s Captain America: Civil War depicting its two main heroes Cap and Iron Man fighting one another, and how much of the story centered around building the precise reasons they disagree and are eventually tricked and manipulated into fighting.

When it merely seems everyone is angry Superman’s fight against Zod caused so much destruction, and that he intervened in a sovereign nation to save Lois Lane, we don’t see that he’s framed as massacring people. Too much of Superman’s screen time and arc, including Clark Kent’s investigation into Batman and Gotham City, was gutted due to studio leadership overtly disregarding Superman’s importance or popularity. Likewise, Batman’s scenes specific to the expanded explanation for society’s backlash against Superman were necessary to give more context to why he’s so fearful of Superman’s actions and believes he must take drastic action to save Earth.

So the average viewer, who hasn’t read the comics enough to understand the source inspiration, sees what looks more like a disagreement about tactics and a personal grudge and resentment leading two great superheroes to beat each other up and then Batman tries to kill Superman. I’ve read enough comics, and was filtering what I was watching through my “fill in the blanks” writer’s (and screenwriter’s) perception, so I saw it differently, but I can understand how the studio meddling caused audiences to both perceive it and also respond to it differently.

Which is why I’ll always believe a tighter edit of Batman v Superman (Ultimate Cut) could’ve put back the elements audiences needed while keeping the runtime closer to 2 hours 50 minutes for a theatrical version that would’ve topped $900 million and gotten better reviews, perhaps at least closer toward 50-50% instead of 28% at Rotten Tomatoes.

Likewise, Suicide Squad (Extended Cut) was far better than the theatrical version, and director David Ayer’s full version would’ve had the villainous plot tie directly into Justice League (via trying to contact Darkseid and summoning Steppenwolf instead). Point being, again there was potential to boost the box office here toward maybe $800 million and helped the terrible 26% Rotten Tomatoes score a bit.

Still, the early slate of the DCEU was mostly a success, even if including an underperformance by Batman v Superman’s theatrical cut and a near-flop in the makeshift Justice League theatrical cut-up. That Batman v Superman was an easy fix by just releasing the original version with more modest cuts for pacing, in terms of improved outcomes that keep the DCEU on track.

I’ve explained before why I also think Sndyer’s cut of Justice League – which was mostly finished, despite studio denials and trade publications perpetually reinforcing the falsehood – should’ve been allowed to wait for his return, at which point it would’ve essentially been Zack Snyder’s Justice League and could be cut into a Part 1 and Part 2 (at the point Steppenwolf discovers the Anti-Life Equation). Nobody can convince me that such a scenario wouldn’t have delivered at least $1 billion from the two films’ box office combined, if not closer to $1.5 billion or more. Since it’s from what was going to be a single film investment, getting two movies for that box office outcome would’ve been a massive victory.

And that’s how easy it was, how few small changes that seem so obvious, could’ve made the DCEU far better and more successful. The whole future of DC movies and superhero box office would be quite different today, if anyone in a position of power at WB had made those correct choices and prevented what became self-sabotage of the studio’s biggest brands and characters when they had so much potential success within reach.

Batman v Superman - Legacy

I was a fan of Batman v Superman, and an even bigger fan of the Ultimate Edition. And I still believe that over time, its reputation will continue to improve and the larger vision across that early slate of films will become even clearer and more respected for how different it was from other superhero movies and for the overarching vision and stories tying it all together.

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Zack Sndyer’s idea of a DC cinematic world was a glorious realization of the foundational meaning and point of view of DC Comics. There is a vast distance between the shallow and entirely false, simplistic negative narratives about Snyder and his movies, and the truth of the filmmaker’s long and thoughtful and nuanced discussions of storytelling and character, his understanding of the source materials and why they are portrayed certain ways at certain times, and his fascination with deconstructing those legends in order to comprehend them and internalize them better, and to then put them back together stronger than before.

I’ve argued all of this at length before, so I will keep those elements short and simply refer you to them with links, and try to focus on things I haven’t talked about as much before. This being the 10th anniversary, I’ve rewatched Batman v Superman probably a dozen times already, and there’s always plenty worth talking about that hasn’t been fully discussed enough.

I will defend and champion Chris Terrio’s screenplay until the end of time, and feel most of the complaints about the film rely heavily on misrepresenting or ignoring what actually happens and is said in the film, in favor of hyperbolic or obtuse interpretations. It’s always worth remembering Snyder’s building of the DCEU and his creative vision included collaboration and partnership with Terrio in the screenwriting for Batman v Superman and Justice League movies.

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Terrio also had to take their original plans for multiple films and work them into a single movie, and did such a fantastic job that the true result (ZSJL) could be turned back into two films for an even bigger box office bang, had studio leadership made the right choices instead of the worst possible ones.

The characters’ arcs in Batman v Superman, the ways in which they collide, and the moment everything is upended and Batman realizes he’s become the villain of his own tale (just another good guy who didn’t stay good in Gotham), are treated as mythic and operatic.

This is mortal man daring to stand up to the gods and bend them to his will. It’s realizing you haven’t risen yourself high to fight the gods, you’ve merely brought them down to your level, and in doing so become the very thing you spent your life fighting to destroy. It’s watching the gods fall not because of your valor, but because of their own valor in defense of you.

Batman v Superman more than any other DC film most clearly represents what makes DC Comics different from Marvel Comics, and embodies the central concept: where Marvel uses myths about the human condition to tell personal character stories, DC uses personal character stories to tell myths about the human condition. DC uses the small to go larger, while Marvel uses the large to zoom in. They are similar yet subtly and importantly different.

That difference felt distilled and turned into a foundational purposeful aspect of how the stories were told at DC during the 1980s reboot/revival of DC’s characters, a very self-aware attempt to lean heavily into that myth scale and operatic form of storytelling distinguished by its clearer focus on the “use the small to speak to larger universal and mythical stories.” Comics like The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen are among the most famous examples of the era, because they shaped so much of what came afterward not merely in terms of tone and style, but precisely due to those stories’ awareness of their mythic status and the manner in which the equation worked from character to human condition within DC’s perspective.

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I like the comparison of DC stories to opera, because Marvel indeed feels more like live drama theater, like Greek myth-based and Wagnerian operas on one hand and Shakespeare on the other, to overstate the analogy but also to demonstrate what I’m talking about tonally and in terms of perspective.

Similar to Marvel’s approach, Shakespeare has done plays at scale like Henry VI, but also personal comedies and tragedies like The Comedy of Errors or Romeo and Juliet, using the larger scale and human condition as framework for telling individual character stories across genres. Likewise, I think there’s a solid comparisons between DC films and Mozart’s The Magic Flute or Wagner’s Parsifal in the same regards.

It’s worth rewatching Batman v Superman in its Ultimate Edition for the 10th anniversary. And maybe rewatch it with Man of Steel and Zack Snyder’s Justice League. Because it’s nice to have the complete story and vision in hand, as part of a larger DCEU that for all of its warts still represents a fully formed DC world that got a chance to tell its main stories. With Paramount poised to take over WBD, the future of DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn’s newly minted DCU is conversely up in the air, so the only thing for certain is we’ll at least have The Batman, Superman, Supergirl, Clayface, Man of Tomorrow, and The Batman: Part II in hand before new owners can derail things yet again just as DC is getting back on its feet.