Holy shit. Confirmed by Zack Snyder at Comic-Con. Apparently this is Man of Steel 2. As Reddit points out, the Batman logo used above is from The Dark Knight Returns. What do y'all expect from this? I'm very curious to see how this ends up. I personally enjoyed Man of Steel, but I'm much more interested in the role of Batman ...
Harry Lennox (General Swanwick from Man of Steel) read this line before they debuted the logo: "I want you to remember my hand at your throat. I want you to remember the one man who beat you." Straight out of Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns. My body is SO ready, I don't even know what to do. As soon as a Hi-Res of that logo comes out.... it's my Facebook Cover picture until 2015, no questions asked.
I was disappointed with the animated Dark Knight Returns. It wouldn't make sense for them to use Superman's storyline after what we just saw in Man Of Steel. He's the government's bitch in DKR, yet in Man Of Steel he isn't taking any shit from them. The only satisfying part of that movie was Bruce beating the shit out of Clark because he was such a tool.
Here is an extremely short Instagram video of the announcement. I thought it was fairly well done. Crowd went nuts.
I wonder who will be signed on to be Batman. Hopefully someone who can match the same acting skill that Christian Bale brought to the table in The Dark Knight trilogy. That is going to be really hard to do.
Why were you disappointed with the animated Dark Knight Returns? I loved it. Of course, I would have liked to hear the internal monologues, but for cramming that much content into around 2 hours without just completely fucking it up, it's just amazing. I'm so happy with that film. I could still see this Bruce thinking Kal is the government's bitch if they play up Bruce's paranoia about governmental corruption. In Man of Steel, Kal is less naive than in The Dark Knight, but he's still somewhat naive about them. Just saying, I could see the angle working, but it'd kinda light Batman as an anti-hero more than a hero. I think after the events in Man of Steel, Bruce will be wanting to get as close to Superman as he can to try and figure out if he's a threat... and he might even treat him as a threat for most of the movie, given the collateral damage. I think that's going to be one of his big motivations. I LOVE watching stuff like this, and I hope that animation makes it to YouTube soon in a higher quality. I'm rather curious about this too, but I don't want Christian Bale to come back. He was great for his films, but he's done and he's tired of it... I don't want MoS2 to suffer because he's just not interested anymore. And to have Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the role wouldn't do the role justice at all.... Luke Evans could be good--I guess he was in Immortals with Henry Cavill, though. The ONE casting decision I will stand by is that I want to see either Benedict Cumberbatch or Michael C. Hall play Lex Luthor, though. That shit would be LEGIT.
I'm pretty sure Snyder said that his films wouldn't be the same continuity of Nolan's films. More specifically when he was talking about a future justice leauge movie he said that bat-man exists but not Nolan's. And I don't think Nolan's Bat-Man would work anyway, he's more grounded into a realistic type of world.
The story is being written by Goyer & Snyder, the script by Goyer -> I'm not expecting much of anything beyond mediocrity at best.
The animated two-parter The Dark Knight Returns was absolutely incredible, and a highly faithful adaptation of the original comic - Frank Miller is a beast, and DCAU did a great job of bringing it to life, in a manner of speaking. The depth and mind-bending psychosis to The Joker, and this Batman, is what makes The Dark Knight Returns so grand, and probably one of the reasons Nolan was drawn to using some elements from it. Although, I'm glad he didn't write Carrie into the trilogy I don't see how much original content Snyder is going to put into MoS 2 if he just says they're not adapting it but they're drawing influence from it, including the logo. And he did confirm a Batman/Superman face-off, but is this Batman really just going to be introduced with already having an exoskeleton made with atmospheric-manipulating abilities, or even more ridiculous, a kryptonite core? Otherwise, he's not gonna scratch Superman. The best reaction from the announcement was Hardwick's: "WHAT THE SHIT WAS THAT?!"
Well Bruce is one of the smartest people on the planet and he knows Clark won't kill him, so he has a big advantage over Clark. He has the conviction whereas Clark does not. That's why he ends up beating his ass. And because Clark is weakened from the nuke. I was hoping they wouldn't include Clark working at the Daily Planet in that stupidly transparent disguise and they did that, so they'll probably end up introducing kryptonite in the series as well. Both are lame lame lame and need a more original twist to make Superman actually interesting.
Clark has killed time and time again in comics, DCAU, and even most recently in Man of Steel - if he needs to, he will. Bruce feigned the heart attack in TDK Returns, sure, but whether or not he intended to make it seem like it was a result of the fight with the strongest being on Earth (as far as they know) or not isn't explicitly stated, though it's more likely that'd be more reasonable of a conclusion. Where Clark has brute strength, Bruce needed brute brains a la Oliver. Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy owes two things to its great success: dark, mature grounded-ness, and loyalty to the source material. Comics, animated series, Smallville, or the movies, Clark Kent is an employee of the Daily Planet and it allows him to do what Cavill's Kent said it would: keep his ear to the ground and let him go to dangerous places without looking suspicious. I, too, was hesitant to see how that could possibly work, but the only people who saw him enough to put two-and-two together are Lois, the General, and Ferris, none of whom will reveal the secret, albeit for different reasons.
Since the Man of Steel universe is most likely going to be apart from the Batman Nolan-Verse, I think Tom Hardy would be a great pick for Batman. He can be charming and funny as Bruce Wayne, as seen in Inception, and can also play a dark, damaged character, as seen in Warrior. Plus he has the good looks to pull of Billionare Playboy Bruce Wayne.
See Karl Urban on partaking in Star Wars: Episode VII. I don't think the majority of ticket buyers would like to see Bane don the cowl.