If there’s one thing we can be thankful for when it comes to Batman Vs. Superman, it’s the fact that the man directing it is just as big a geek as the rest of us. While Zack Snyder has had his hands in several high-profile superhero projects before, this is undoubtedly his biggest film yet, and he couldn’t be more excited. Currently, he’s deep in pre-production on the as-yet-untitled Man of Steel sequel, with cameras expected to start rolling in Detroit any day now.
Earlier this week, Snyder took some time out of his busy schedule for an interview with Forbes writer Mark Hughes that covered a wide variety of topics, from how he became a Batman fan to his thoughts on the Terry Gilliam/Watchmen controversy that sparked earlier this year. It’s a great interview and definitely worth your time, but for the sake of this article I’ll be highlighting a few interesting bits concerning his hotly anticipated film about Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman.
As far as the costumes are concerned, Snyder geeks out about them daily and has a giant picture of them hanging on the wall in his office. He goes on to say:
“The thing also that’s really fascinating for me is that, even just in the tests we’ve been doing, the costumes, right? You basically have Batman and Superman — and this is without Ben [Affleck] and Henry [Cavill] in the costumes, but just like the stand-ins, just testing to see what the costumes look like. And you have them standing there and they’re standing in the same shot — and then we have Wonder Woman, you know, all three of them in the same shot. Even just for a test, you really have to go, “Wow, that’s crazy!” Not only is it the first time that I’m seeing them, it’s the first time they’ve ever existed together on screen in a movie. And that’s kind of a huge deal. Even just Batman and Superman standing next to each other… [I]t’s kind of epic. You do sort of sense the weight of the pop culture iconography jumping out of its skin when you’re standing there looking at the two of them and Wonder Woman. It’s crazy. But it’s fun. I mean, I have the first photo, I’ve got it in my archive because I was like, “Okay, I better keep this, it’s gonna be worth something.” [laughs]”
As far as when we can expect to see them? That’s not up to him. If it were, we’d have seen them already:
“Unfortunately, I don’t even know the timeline… Because the movie takes place so far from now, it’s hard to know exactly. That all gets tied to marketing and strategies for the movie. It’s not just a free-for-all, which I’d love it to be. Because I take a picture of the suit with my camera– I’m actually staring at one right now in my office. And it’s just massive on my wall in my office and it’s epic, let me tell you! And I’m like, “God, I want to send this to the Internet immediately.” But I know I’m not allowed to [laughs]! I do value the sort of excitement of the way the film is [revealed]… the pieces that are released and sort of trickle out to everybody, and those reveals are exciting milestones for us.”
Of course, many of us have been hoping that the studio would reveal the costumes any day now, in order to avoid the risk of having our first look at them be via leaked set photos. According to Snyder, that’s been taken into consideration. After the new Superman costume was leaked before an official image from Man of Steel was released, it seems that Warner Bros. has found a way to avoid paparazzi for as long as possible.
“The one nice thing is that, the schedule is designed carefully so that I don’t know that [paparazzi photos] will be [a problem]– but who knows, these cats are pretty good at getting the drop on us with these photos. But, when we finally do show it, it’s gonna be real fun. And it’s true, you gotta make sure– you’re gonna want the real shot.”