Early speculation on “Batman vs. Superman”

Photo via @TheSportsHero

Man of Steel came out only six weeks ago, but there is already some serious buzz about what’s to come thanks to this year’s Comic-Con. In San Diego, Zack Snyder announced that the next film in the rebooted Superman franchise will heavily feature a new incarnation of Batman. This, obviously, caused many fanboys to wet themselves with excitement. It’s also caused a hefty amount of speculation – there’s even already a list of actors who are being considered for the new Caped Crusader. So even though we’re still two years out, I thought I’d join in the fun and offer up some of my own theories about what could be the greatest team-up movie ever.

Snyder broke the news by having Man of Steel cast member Harry Lennix come up on stage and read a passage from The Dark Knight Returns. If you’re not a comic book reader, that probably means absolutely nothing to you, so let me explain. Dark Knight Returns is a story from the ‘80s depicting an older Bruce Wayne who is living in a desolate future and has long since stopped being Batman. He is eventually (of course) motivated to put on the utility belt again, but causes enough havoc that Superman, who is now at the behest of the U.S. government, is called in to take him out. And because this is comics and Batman has a plan for every scenario, the Dark Knight wins hand-to-hand against the most powerful being on the planet.

All of this means that we’re in for big-time super-and-probably-Kryptonite-powered fisticuffs a couple summers from now. It’s pretty common practice in comics for the good guys to come to blows when they first meet – anyone who saw The Avengers got a taste of that – but that’s clearly not going to be the main conflict of the movie. After all, Batman and Superman have to wind up on the same page by the end of the film so that WB can get things moving on their planned Justice League flick. So after these two have most likely fought each other to a standstill, they’ll need to team up to address a bigger threat than either one can handle alone. Who could that be?

For me, the obvious number one choice is Lex Luthor. His presence was hinted at briefly in Man of Steel (we saw the LexCorp building get hammered by falling debris), and he’s too important a piece of the Superman mythos to leave out of the sequel. That doesn’t mean he’s going to be working alone, though. His role is usually that of a mastermind (and a much, much less goofy one than either Gene Hackman or Kevin Spacey have portrayed), so it’s possible that he could be orchestrating events from behind the scenes while some heavier hitters do the, well, literal heavy hitting. In my opinion, this would be a great way to include one or two of Batman’s enemies as well. Audiences have seen several of Gotham City’s most devious citizens on screen already, so Snyder could just bypass a typical villain origin story and dive right in.

The inclusion of Batman opens up possibilities not only for the story, but for the tone of the film as well. One of my complaints about Man of Steel was that it didn’t have the hopeful tone that I (and a lot of people) associate with Superman. It was a very heavy movie, and while I appreciate that Snyder and David Goyer took the source material seriously, it could have used a few more uplifting moments.

If done well, having Batman in the sequel should help define Superman as, to sound as cliché as humanly possible, a beacon of hope. There needs to be a clear difference in attitude between the two, with Batman the brooding pessimist and Superman the idealist who uses his status with the public to inspire.

(By the way, that is another thing the sequel really needs to establish. In the film’s likely timeline, Superman was just instrumental in destroying about a third of one of the world’s biggest cities by punching another alien through their foundations. I can’t imagine the general public totally trusts this guy – the next movie needs to make him that positive force everyone looks up to.)

This tone makes even more sense considering the actors rumored to be on the shortlist to play Batman: Jeffrey Dean Morgan (The Comedian in Snyder’s Watchmen), Ryan Gosling (love him, but please no), Joe Manganiello (True Blood), and Josh Brolin, who is possibly the frontrunner. They are all older than Henry Cavill, in some cases significantly – Brolin is 46, and if Warner Brothers is planning on starting a brand new Batman franchise, seems a little old to sign on for three or four movies over the next decade or so. Regardless, having a Bruce Wayne who is older, more a grizzled veteran who (presumably) has spent years fighting crime in the shadows, would give the two main characters a natural dichotomy. Working alongside a man who dedicates his life to fighting in the darkness could strengthen Superman’s resolve to be the one in the light. After all, both Batman and Superman can’t be dark – the filmmakers need to continue to develop the character of Superman and let Cavill’s natural charm (which we unfortunately saw too little of in Man of Steel) shine.

Most of all, I truly hope Batman vs. Superman (or whatever it winds up being called) is fun. I did enjoy Man of Steel for the most part, but its heavy-handed seriousness got to be a bit too much by the end. The sequel needs to be full of thrills and high stakes, but those shouldn’t come at the expense of reveling in the fact that this is Batman and Superman in a movie together. For me, there’s nothing cooler than that.