The San Diego Comic-Con kicks off later this week, during which we can expect plenty from DC / Warner Bros. on Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice. But in the meantime director Zack Snyder is already weighing in on the audience reaction to the previous **Man Of Steel, suggesting in the process where the sequel might be headed.
[Spoilers follow, for the three of you that haven't seen Man Of Steel] There were, we'd argue, two controversies at the end of Man Of Steel: the snapping of Zod's neck, and the 9/11 levels of destruction that Zod and Superman wreaked around Metropolis. It's the latter that Snyder is concerned with here. The problem most people had with the devastation was that the nascent Superman seemed unconcerned by the collateral damage of his super-pummelling. Not so, says the director:
"I was surprised because that’s the thesis of Superman for me, that you can’t just have superheroes knock around and have there be no consequences. There are other superhero movies where they joke about how basically no-one’s getting hurt. That’s not us. What is that message? That’s it’s okay that there’s this massive destruction with zero consequence for anyone?"
The implication there, as has been much predicted, is that Batman V Superman will explicitly count the Metropolis dead, who provide the impetus for the whole "versus" deal.
(Should you be looking for someone addressing the Zod issue, by the way, we refer you no further than Empire's own archive interview with Michael Shannon. "I’ve heard some scuttlebutt about how Superman is not supposed to kill anybody and he broke his rule," he told us, "but Zod very clearly states in the movie that it’s 'either me or you'. It’s, 'Either you’re going to die or I’m going to die', basically. There’s no way to get off the hook. I don’t care who you are, if someone says that to you, you’re probably going to prefer it if the other person dies and you don’t. Zack treats the ideas with a seriousness, it’s not manipulative at all. We’re not trying to make the audience cry or drop their popcorn or whatever. It’s not just a quote-unquote 'comic book movie' – it means something to him. It is good to work with someone who is taking it seriously no matter what.")
"One of the things I liked was Zack’s idea of showing accountability and the consequences of violence and seeing that there are real people in those buildings,” says Ben Affleck, who you may have heard plays Snyder's Batman. “And in fact, one of those buildings was Bruce Wayne’s building so he knew people who died in that Black Zero event."
As we said, expect way more Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice action later in the week.