If you thought Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was dark, the original incarnation of the project from the early 2000s would have been “the darkest thing you’ve ever seen” had it been produced, according to its screenwriter.
That project had Wolfgang Petersen (Das Boot, Troy) set to direct, with Colin Farrell lined up to portray the Dark Knight and Jude Law as the Man of Steel.
In an interview with Collider, screenwriter Akiva Goldsman — the Batman Forever and Batman & Robin screenwriter who rewrote the original screenplay by Se7en’s Andrew Kevin Walker — pulled the curtain back on the ambitious superhero epic, which was many years ahead of the sort of dark and gritty DC movie-verse we would (briefly) get from director Zack Snyder.
“It was really The World’s Finest, in a kind of dark and interesting way. I think it could have been lovely,” Goldsman said.
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Goldsman, who confirmed that Farrell and Law were the actors they wanted to play the leads, recalled “we were in prep and it was the darkest thing you’ve ever seen. It started with Alfred’s funeral and Bruce has fallen in love and renounced being Batman, the Joker kills his wife, and then you discover it was all a lie.”
He continued: “Just that the love itself was constructed by the Joker to break [Bruce]. It was a time where you would be able to get these sort of stories together in script form but they couldn’t quite land in the world. Somehow, the expectations of the object — whether they be audience or corporate or directorial — it wasn’t landing quite in the way I think we imagined when we put them on the page.”
Jude Law told talk show host Stephen Colbert in 2016 that he ultimately turned down the role of Superman because he didn’t like the costume. IGN spoke to Colin Farrell about his brush with the role of Batman back in 2012, which you can watch in the video below.
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Colin Farrell, of course, would eventually be cast as the Penguin in Matt Reeves’ The Batman, while Jude Law joined the MCU as Yon-Rogg in Captain Marvel.
What do you think of these story details about the Batman v Superman movie that might have been? Let us know in the comments.
Source: IGN.com The Original, Unproduced BvS "Was the Darkest Thing You've Ever Seen"