BATMAN V. SUPERMAN and JUSTICE LEAGUE Scribe Chris Terrio Discusses Writing These Big Warner Bros. Movies


Having never written a super hero anything in his life, Oscar winning Argo writer Chris Terrio was brought on by Warner Bros. to write BATMAN V. SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE and its follow-up ensemble movie JUSTICE LEAGUE. Terrio is now opening up (via Wall Street Journal) about his two highly anticipated DC Films movies.

On incorporating Batman into BATMAN V. SUPERMAN

"After 'Man of Steel,' I didn’t want to have this moment where you say, 'Batman exists in this world, we forgot to tell you.' [In BATMAN V. SUPERMAN] We’re saying, 'No he’s been here the whole time.'"

On Wonder Woman in BATMAN V. SUPERMAN

"With [Wonder Woman alter ego] Diana Prince, I thought it would be better if we met her as a civilian first and involved her in the plot in a way that felt like a thriller. She’s a mysterious woman interested in the same things Bruce Wayne is. 
"The fun of it is if you don’t immediately reveal her in superhero guise, so you get to revel in the moment when she finally does reveal herself. If you bring in a character in a kinetic way, then you accept the reality more easily."

On taking the helm to write JUSTICE LEAGUE

"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."

On making JUSTICE LEAGUE less dark than BATMAN V. SUPERMAN

"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."

On researching is DC Films work for the fans

"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."

BATMAN V. SUPERMAN releases on March 25.


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[Image is of Ben Affleck and Chris Terrio on the set of Argo.]