The original script for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was written by David S. Goyer, who was well-versed in the ways of DC Comics adaptations having penned Man of Steel for Zack Snyder and collaborated with Christopher Nolan on Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, while he’s a veteran when it comes to the comic book genre in general after scripting The Crow: City of Angels, the entire Blade trilogy and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.
However, Goyer departed Batman v Superman shortly after handing in his draft, which is when Chris Terrio came aboard. The news was greeted with a mixture of excitement and enthusiasm because he joined the project less than a year after he’d won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for writing Best Picture winner Argo, which also saw director and producer Ben Affleck pick up his second Oscar.
The two clearly struck up a solid working relationship, and Argo found no shortage of critical acclaim, commercial success and awards season glory, so it was a sensible decision to have him pitch up in the DCEU. In a new interview, Terrio admitted that he was brought onto Batman v Superman specifically at Affleck’s request, and the franchise’s new Dark Knight tasked him with punching up some of the dialogue and character work.
“Ben called me and said that he was working on this film, which was a Superman film in which he was going to play Batman. So he asked if I would read the script and consider doing a rewrite. He asked if I would do some character work. So it was already determined and storyboarded that Batman was going to be trying to kill Superman and that Batman was going to have gone down a dark road. He was branding criminals, and it had certain dark elements that were nonnegotiable and already in the story.”
Terrio and Goyer share Batman v Superman‘s screenwriting credit, but the majority of what made it into the movie itself was presumably handled by the former, seeing as he was invited back for Justice League, although that’s an entirely different story. He was also set to rewrite Affleck’s The Batman before the project ultimately fell apart, so he’s clearly a favorite of the DCEU’s Caped Crusader.