One day in the future, blockbuster historians will have a field day digging deep into Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice to try and get a handle on one of the most contentious and hotly-debated big budget studio movies ever made.
The crossover fans had been desperate to see for decades earned a mammoth $873 million at the box office, but that was still viewed as a disappointment given that the clash of comic book titans should have realistically sailed past the billion-dollar mark with the greatest of ease.
BvS was roundly panned by critics, too, and it still ranks as the second worst-reviewed installment in DCEU history with a measly 29 percent Rotten Tomatoes score. That being said, fans will defend the polarizing superpowered smackdown to the death and beyond, even if Snyder finally came around to admitting that the infamous “Martha” scene wasn’t anywhere near as profound as he thought it was.
The filmmaker also revealed that Warner Bros. hated the movie, while writer Chris Terrio went one step further and accused the studio of being both “tone deaf” and actively sabotaging the project in post-production. Of course, being a Snyder-helmed entry in the DCEU, Batman v Superman retains a huge amount of support whether it’s justified or not, but some viewers are only just coming around to its charms.
A recent Reddit thread finds longtime DC defenders admitting that the wildly polarizing epic has been growing on them for a number of years, with many following suit in the comments to echo those similar sentiments. It certainly isn’t an all-time classic of the genre, but perhaps Batman v Superman will continue to be remembered more fondly as time progresses. If not, the Ultimate Edition is a vast improvement on the disappointing theatrical release.