There were no villains to battle or bystanders to save in the first
meeting between DC Comics’ three biggest superheroes on “Batman v.
Superman: Dawn of Justice.”
It was just a simple camera test for stars Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck
and Gal Gadot to go through in their work clothes. But Great Caesar’s
ghost, did it prove dramatic!
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“I was also geeking out enormously seeing Batman and Wonder Woman
standing in front of me,” recalls Cavill. “So much so that I forgot I
was the guy playing Superman.”
Director Zack Snyder, a lifelong comic nerd, saw the bigger picture.
His movie, opening Friday, would be the big bang that launched Warner
Bros’ ambitious plans for a shared cinematic universe for its
superheroes to borrow a (comic book) page from arch-rival Marvel’s
model. Ten more of the studio’s superhero movies, populated by a
costumed coterie that includes the Suicide Squad, Aquaman, the Flash and
Cyborg, are slated to hit theaters in the next five years.
There’s a lot of pressure on these mortals’ shoulders.
“It was really iconic because they were just standing there posing,”
Snyder told the Daily News about that fateful day on the set. “Wonder
Woman had her sword and her shield, Superman had his cape and Batman had
his grapple gun.
“I actually took some stills with my cell phone,” the 50-year-old kid
added. “I remember where I put my hand in the foreground and put my
fingers around them so it looked like I was holding action figures.”
As you’d guess from the title, “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice”
pits Affleck’s grizzled Caped Crusader — in a performance that should
put a kapow! to all that social media griping when his casting
was first announced — against an all-powerful alien he sees as a
potential threat to humanity.
That titular tilt, with Kryptonite and battle armor giving Batman a
fighting chance against the Vegas favorite, is worth the price of
admission.
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“We shot the fight over five months,” says Cavill. “And there were rain
machines, which were fantastic when we started in the summer, because
they were nice and cool, but when it came to the Midwest winter at
night, it was not as awesome.”
If Batman can’t get the job done, the perpetually scheming Lex Luthor
(Jesse Eisenberg) has a dastardly backup plan to take down all costumed
do-gooders.
One of those do-gooders is Wonder Woman, a character who has been
fighting alongside the big boys in the comics for 75 years and a
feminist icon, but had been kept off the big screen by the sexist notion
that female superheroes don’t sell tickets. Now Gadot, an Israeli
actress best known for her lap around the “Fast & Furious”
franchise, is poised to make history.
“I knew in my heart of hearts if I could get the right Wonder Woman it
would make sense,” says Snyder. “Weirdly, it worked. Once you nail that
piece of casting, that whole world takes an authentic shape.”
The real heavyweight bout will be at multiplexes, where the movie and
the fledgling DC cinematic universe will face a referendum from
audiences, who are expected to spend money for four sets of superhero
flicks from four studios.
With a tone influenced by Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight”
trilogy, the big screen DC comics heroes are kind of dark for younger
kids in the eyes of detractors — especially since an R-rated cut of
“Dawn of Justice” will be released on DVD.
“The whole R-rated DVD comes out of the process of getting the PG-13 in
this modern age and how you go back and forth with the (Motion Picture
Association of America) and you trim a piece here and trim a piece
there,” says Snyder. “I don’t think it’s anything dramatic.”
“It’s important to make these characters accessible to both kids and adults,” adds Cavill. “We had to tow the line carefully.”
History, though, is on the side of Superman, the character that started
the whole superhero phenomenon with a single bound back in 1938, and
his Super-Friends.
“I remember meeting a former Special Forces (soldier) who was so
excited to meet me that he was shaking when he shook my hand,” says
Cavill. “I gave him a big hug. You realize guys who were out there and
had seen combat, tough and brave guys, and when they meet you they’re
shaking because they’re nervous.
“That’s when I realized how important this character is.”
Ain’t It Cool News founder Harry Knowles believes there’s plenty of room for all those Spider-Men and Wonder Women.
“Twenty years ago when I started my website, the best we had was (the
critically reviled) ‘Batman and Robin,’” says Knowles. “We were seeing
superhero films that fundamentally didn’t understand the characters or
the potential that genres had. Now, we’re just starting a golden age.
“I have been waiting my entire geeky life for this moment.”
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