Warner Bros. and DC Comics are entering their most critical and exciting territory with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice this month, mainly because it formally segues into the universe of DC’s own iconic super team, the Justice League.
Chris Terrio was brought on as a writer for Batman v Superman, but also for the Justice League movie which is set to hit theaters next year. Terrio, an Oscar-winning writer for his work on Argo, talks about the journey, commitment, and creative process that went into writing Justice League: Part One in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
“I initially thought I wasn’t the guy to do Justice League and went off to work on something else. But the first day I went to the set, I saw Jesse [Eisenberg] in a scene with Holly Hunter and I really did feel like I was watching some strange, great performance in an independent film. At that moment, I thought, ‘I’m not done with this yet. I want to go back and keep telling the story.’ Batman v Superman is a bit of an Empire Strikes Back or Two Towers or any similar middle film in a trilogy. The middle film tends to be the darkest one. I do think from Man of Steel through Justice League, it is one saga really. I expect Justice League will be tonally not quite as dark as Batman v Superman. From that point of view, I felt compelled to go back and try to lift us and myself into a different tonal place because I think when you write a darker film, sometimes you want to redeem it all a bit.
It’s plenty clear that Batman v Superman has a darker tone than Man of Steel from the trailers. There’s conflict at the initial forefront between Superman and Batman, and the philosophical magnitude makes it a very serious movie. Terrio saying that Justice League won’t tonally be as dark is interesting and expected. The focus at that point should be pure energy and excitement about bringing all of these heroes together. Terrio also said he won’t be writing the Justice League sequel:
I have written Justice League Part One, but I won’t necessarily write ‘Part Two.’ This has been the most rigorous intellectual exercise I’ve had in my writing life. For Batman v Superman, I wanted to really dig into everything from ideas about American power to the structure of revenge tragedies to the huge canon of DC Comics to Amazon mythology. For Justice League, I could be reading in the same day about red- and blueshifts in physics, Diodorus of Sicily and his account of the war between Amazons and Atlanteans, or deep-sea biology and what kind of life plausibly might be in the Mariana Trench. If you told me the most rigorous dramaturgical and intellectual product of my life would be superhero movies, I would say you were crazy. But I do think fans deserve that. I felt I owed the fan base all of my body and soul for two years because anything less wouldn’t have been appreciating the opportunity I had.”
Terrio and others have had a chance to prep the most historical event in Warner Bros. and DC Comics Entertainment history and it all starts coming together in a couple of weeks when Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice hits theaters on March 25.
Justice League: Part One has a November 17, 2017 release date and begins production this April. The movie stars Ben Affleck as Batman, Henry Cavill as Superman, Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, Jason Momoa as Aquaman, Ray Fisher as Cyborg, Ezra Miller as The Flash, and J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon.
