Zack Snyder's Original Batman V Superman Title Was 'A Little More Poetic'

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“Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” arrived amid a firestorm of controversy when it was initially released. Not only did the follow-up to Henry Cavill’s “Man of Steel” introduce a Batman (Ben Affleck) who guns down criminals mercilessly, but it also featured divisive takes on iconic Superman villains like Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) and Doomsday.

Many years later, however, “Batman v Superman” has legions of ardent defenders, so much so that they fought for and eventually succeeded in getting a re-cut version of “Zack Snyder’s Justice League.” Still, to hear it from the director himself, he wasn’t crazy about the title that Warner Bros. Pictures had in mind for the movie.

“I remember when there was a back-and-forth that I had with the studio, ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ was like the only title that [Warner Bros. liked] Snyder said during 2021’s Justice Con. “The whole ‘v’ instead of ‘versus,’ it was like this crazy negotiation. I was like, ‘Guys, can’t we just do something like ‘Son of Sun and Knight of Night,’ or something that’s a little bit more poetic?'” he recalled wondering. “And they were like, ‘Absolutely not.’ I was like, ‘Is it a court case?’ The only plus of it is that ‘BvS’ is really easy.”

For good or ill, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice stuck

To be fair to the studio here, “Son of Sun and Knight of Night” is incredibly awkward and might be the goofiest title this side of “Pennyworth: The Origin of Batman’s Butler” had it been approved. All the same, Zack Snyder does have a point, especially when you stop and consider how blatantly Warner Bros. was trying to chase the success of the MCU during this time period.

The sequel’s writer, screenwriter Chris Terrio, explained that he had no hand in the decision to title the film “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.” In truth, the original screenplay didn’t have a title at all. “I wrote drafts of the Batman/Superman movie, which wasn’t called ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ by me,” he told Vanity Fair. “I did not name the script.”

Perhaps even more surprisingly, Terrio says Warner Bros. didn’t even tell him what it was calling the movie, and he wasn’t a fan when he learned what it was. “In fact, I found out what the movie was called along with the rest of the world on the internet,” he revealed. “I was not consulted on the title of the film, and I was as surprised as anyone. I would not have named it ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.'”