Zack Snyder has recently been out spilling all kinds of tea about his DC Extended Universe films (Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, Justice League). With Snyder’s obligations to Warner Bros. seemingly done, and big things popping up on the horizon (like Netflix’s Army of the Dead), we’ve been getting the raw, uncut, version of Snyder out sharing DCEU trivia, which has reinvigorated fan discussion all over again!
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One of the biggest running themes in Snyder’s DCEU breakdowns the last few months has no doubt been discussion of DC’s biggest bad, Darkseid, was originally supposed to fit into the film franchise. Today, we can add another piece of the ‘Darkseid Saga’ that could’ve been: how Darkseid’s murder of Lois Lane (Amy Adams) led to that “Knightmare” sequence in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Speaking to audiences at an event called “The Director’s Cuts” at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, this is what Zack Snyder revealed about Lois Lane’s death at Darkseid’s hands, as he envisioned it:
“The truth is that the ‘Knightmare Sequence’ in this movie, it was my idea that all of that would eventually be explained – is that a surprise? And that we would end up in the distant future where Darkseid has taken over Earth, and where Superman has succumbed to the Anti-Life [Equation]. And there were a few members of the Justice League that survived to that world, and that they were fighting, Batman and a broken half of Cyborg – there’s only half of him because of whatever happened – they were working on an equation to jump back to tell Bruce… those were the things that we were dealing with. And the studio, they were still sort of into the big look, but the deep depth about how and why everyone was mad at each other…
Because Lois – and it’s in the Justice League teaser; it wasn’t in the movie apparently… it’s this line where Bruce says, ‘I was right here, and Barry Allen came to me and he said ‘Lois Lane is the key.’ And then [Wonder Woman] goes, ‘She is to Superman; every heart has one.’ And he goes, ‘I think it’s something more, something darker.’ And what it means is that the thing that was darker was all about if Lois died, Superman would succumb to the Anti-Life, right? And Superman knew that somehow it was Bruce’s responsibility to protect Lois, he would’ve been mad at him in this movie, and that’s why he says, ‘She was my world, and you took her from me.”
Snyder went on with a lengthy explanation about how the Justice League saga would’ve had two time jump possibilities for fixing the past: one that results in Flash’s Batman v Superman warning, and the other where Bruce Wayne and Cyborg tried to actually fix the “Knightmare” course of events. It’s that latter scenario that revealed what would’ve been an epically tragic moment in the story:
“Because he [Bruce} had to jump back right before Darkseid Boom Tubes into the Batcave to murder Lois.”
The collective groan from the audience pretty much sums up the feelings of DCEU fans everywhere. If there wasn’t already sufficient evidence of just how much Warner Bros. robbed Snyder fans of a truly epic DCEU story – this was probably it. At the very least, Amy Adams would’ve gotten a much more redeeming dramatic performance than what the infamous “Martha Moment” afforded her; not to mention the much more epic arc for Ben Affleck’s Batman.So clearly fans weren’t the only ones cheated here: the cast and Snyder himself lost something potentially special.
The DC Movie Universe continues with Shazam on April 5th, Joker on October 4th, Birds of Prey on February 7th, 2020, Wonder Woman 1984 on June 5th, 2020, and The Batman on June 25th, 2021.
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