Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice

Japanese import company Bluefin has announced a line of high-end statues based on Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice from Iron Studios, and a Batman statue based on his appearance in the Arkham Knight video game, as part of its new deal as the exclusive North American distributor for the Brazilian collectibles studio.

After a disappointing weekend that saw it lose to a horrible Melissa McCarthy comedy in only its third week of release, Batman v Superman looks poised for a total domestic run between $325 and $340 million. That’s below Deadpool, Furious 7 and even American Sniper and certainly not what Warner Bros. had hoped for their big (and expensive) movie. Current projections indicate that Batman v Superman won’t turn a profit when all is said and done. Hoping to inch closer to profitability, Warner Bros. is reportedly mulling the idea of releasing Zack Snyder’s extended, R-rated cut of Batman v Superman directly to theaters.

As the old saying goes, no one sets out to make a bad movie. Even with a movie like Batman v Superman that has been widely pilloried by fans and critics alike, no one can deny that a lot of hard work went into making this movie, and all with the best intentions. Maybe the end result was…divisive, but it doesn’t diminish some of the technical achievements. To that end, today we have some before and after photos of the making of Batman v Superman to highlight some of the work done to bring the DC Cinematic Universe to light.

Whether you look at it as a positive or a negative, Batman v Superman was empirically a dark movie. Whether it was needlessly killing Jimmy Olsen or Batman wanting to stab Superman in the heart or all the other assorted murder going on, it was just a dark movie, and that’s what director Zack Snyder wanted. But even for him, there was one scene that was too dark and needed to be cut from the final film.

Batman vs. Superman opened to negative reviews and mixed word of mouth. All that could have been forgiven if it was a box-office juggernaut, but after an impressive opening weekend, Dawn of Justice is sinking like a stone. With the film now unlikely to reach $1 billion — the new benchmark for franchise success in Hollywood — Warner Bros...

Be forewarned: There’s been a bit of confusion as of late regarding the veracity of an Instagram account with the handle @lexcorp. The account has amassed over 24,500 followers and has now been cited by several comic-book news sources as an official affiliate of the DC cinematic universe, tying in to Zack Snyder’s recent Batman V Superman and teasing unnamed upcoming projects. (In particular, a post yesterday promised that “Something big is coming” and that their “newest project will be fully functioning by 2017.”) While nowhere in the account’s bio section does it claim to be affiliated to DC, Warner Bros. or any authorized branch thereof, it doesn’t disclaim its own status as a fan-account, either. Which is what it is.

Of the many divisive aspects of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Doomsday turned out to be one of the lesser offenders, though many pointed out that Weta’s design of the character was a little too similar to a handful of their other designs in films like The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Like all visual effects creations, Doomsday went through a few different iterations before director Zack Snyder and his team settled on the final design, and new concept art shows you what the villain could have looked like.

Since the release of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Zack Snyder hasn’t spent much time talking about Justice League or the future of the DC movie universe — instead, he’s mostly been explaining some of the (many, many, many) things that happen in his superhero epic. And while we anxiously await his explanation of Granny’s Peach Tea, the director is opening up about one character who wasn’t actually in the film, but whose existence was crucial to Ben Affleck’s iteration of Batman.

Last night, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! ran a humorous trailer mashup between Batman v Superman and the upcoming Bridget Jones’s Baby, placing the two superheroes in the roles of Renee Zellweger’s dueling suitors portrayed by Colin Firth and Patrick Dempsey. Everyone’s favorite incurable romantic has been knocked up — but by whom? Does she carry the seed of brooding, sexy playboy Bruce Wayne, or do the alien spawn of Clark Kent gestate within her fertile human womb?

Following the critical response to Batman v. Superman, some fans grew defensive and grew angry at those who spoke negatively about the film. Others took a completely different route: starting a petition to get director Zack Snyder fired. There are a lot of fan petitions for a lot of dumb things. In January there was one to get Colin Trevorrow fired as the director of Star Wars: Episode 9. Then there was the one trying to get Deadpool to host SNL. Now comes the latest as a group of disappointed comic book fans have taken their voices online in an effort to get Snyder out of the DC Cinematic Universe.