One of the Batman v Superman producers discussed some very interesting secrets about the mega blockbuster director Zack Snyder is currently filming in Detroit. While speaking about his career to students at Loyola Marymount University (LMU) School of Film and Television this past week, Charles Roven talked about the Man of Steel sequel.
Roven talked about Ben Affleck’s casting as Batman and said that he was Snyder’s first choice for the role. The producer also talked about what kind of Batman we can expect this time around.
“So we wanted a guy who was tougher, rugged, who had signs of life, who had lived a hard life, and we wanted the guy to have chops, for sure. So when we went down that list, there just weren’t a tremendous number of guys who could carry that.”
According to Roven, this Batman is part of a new group of superheroes, which also includes Wonder Woman — on whom he’s basing a new spin-off movie. The master class, which is part of a series sponsored by The Hollywood Reporter and LMU also included notables James L. Brooks, Alfonso Cuaron, David O. Russell, Judd Apatow, John Singleton, Alan Horn, William Friedkin, and Sherry Lansing.
The producer says that for Batman v Superman, they needed someone really tall for Batman (Affleck is six-feet, four-inches) to counter and look intimidating in front of Henry Cavill (Superman), who is six-feet, one-inch tall. But as opposed to other versions, this Caped Crusader is not as reclusive as we’re used to seeing, and Ben Affleck wanted details on the character Snyder had in mind.
“Affleck wanted to know exactly how Zack planned on treating this Bruce Wayne that was going to make him be completely different, He’s a much more social animal in the Bruce Wayne incarnation, but he’s also a extremely rough guy in the Batman incarnation. Very, very, very, very rough.”
A lot of these disclosures make sense, now that we know what we know concerning Batman v Superman and the dynamics between the two superheroes. It also fits with the “brooding” Batman that we’ve heard so much about ever since Snyder shared the first image of Batfleck with his suit on.
Roven says the biggest difference between this Batman and Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy is that in Batman v Superman Bruce Wayne is a real human being. According to Nolan, the biggest advantage Batman/Bruce has is that he is one of the richest guy in the world.
“When we embarked on Man of Steel , and Chris Nolan produced that with me, one of the things that we were doing was we were creating a universe that had a superhero in it because Superman is clearly a superhero. He has super powers, he comes from another planet. So once we did that it was with the knowledge that if the movie was successful and we expanded the universe we were going to expand it and populate it with other like characters. Wonder Woman (has) powers. She’s a goddess, right? Shes a demigod. Her father was Zeus.”
One of the most exciting tidbits came when THR asked if the producers were actually developing scripts for all these characters, and he said, “yes.” For the complete transcript of the master class click here .
What do you think of Chuck Roven’s new revelations about Batman v Superman ?
[Image via Twitter]