Mrs. Wayne
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For anyone that cares. From the BvS Empire spread,
July 31, 2014, and Empire finds Ben Affleck primed for his superscrap. Hes Bat-armored to the gills, raccoon-eyed, and chomping loudly on an apple. Yet its another epic cinematic struggle that concerns him right now: between bites, hes discussing with Zack Snyder the merits of Film V Digital. For the record, like Nolan, Snyder is a film zealot, deploying fridge-sized IMAX cameras, painted Bat-black for the occasion. Its another way in which continuity from the Dark Knight Trilogy is being preserved.
They exist as three great movies but on their own, and I also wouldnt be comfortable with saying, were gonna one-up that. What Im interested in is that were doing something different.
Afflecks really connected with the idea that his Batman has been through the mill: hes seen success, hes seen failure; hes had the right intentions, and at times been misunderstood. Sort of feeling at the end of ones tether he concludes. Im really well suited to play this guy. Can it be that the chief inspiration for Afflecks Dark Knight is Ben Affleck?
You can see it in Bruce Wayne, still the billionaire operator with a supermodel for every occasion, but greying at the temples and heavy of heart. It is a cover, one that works well for him, is how Affleck interprets his other role, but it is also one that is not a total fake; its a part of him. Wayne and Batman are extensions of the same complex persona.
Which counts for the Bat-voice too. Keaton did him funeral recital, Clooney cheesed off, Bales was a psychotic Tom Waits, each a vocalization of an alternative personality. For Afflecks Batman the voice is as much a tool as the Batmobile. In our film, says producer Deborah Snyder, Batmans voice is digitally altered by the cowl.
Affleck has also embrace Snyders desire for living sculptures, from the pecs of 300 to Cavills own chiseled physique in man of Steel. He stops to make the calculation: over the past year he must have works out over 700 times. And at 43, hes not getting any younger. But you really see the physicality of Batman, he says. Gone are the days of Adam Wests muffin top. Still, the thought of doing Justice League, at 45, causes a wince.
But before any last-act Bat/Supes bromance instigates the DC Avengers, the more immediate issue is how can he possibly hope to bring a superhuman like Kal-El to heel? Will a battle-ready Batmobile and heavyweight Bat-weapons be enough? Or the veritable Batcave of exotic gear theyve developed for the man in black: Bat-grappling hook, Bat-grenade launcher, Batarang and Bat-scanner.
Flicking through a book of concept art on set, the spoiler-police hasten Empire past pictures where his Bat-arsenal has clearly been married to a lime-green glow. Its enough to suggest that unlike Man of Steels aerial final conflict, this fight will primarily take place on terra firma, rolling around in the grit. This may be less about Batman trying to empower himself to reach Supermans level than bring the latter down to his own. As Snyder puts, Its kind of nice Batman has no superpowers
We are in a video village, tented against the desert sun like a Bedouin encampment, and the friendly debate is interrupted when three heralds from the costume department arrive bearing the cowl on a tray. Affleck greets them with a pantomime grimace: Oh, **** off! Snyder and DP Larry Fong break into gales of schoolboy laughter as the costume techs, unfazed, begin the transformation.
Today everyone is wearing masks, protection against the sawdust being blown into frenzies by industrial-sized fans. Affleck smirks. He may wear the famous cowl, but his contract doesnt guarantee protection against his directors artistic choice (its in the small print). As the mask is finally lowered into place, there is an evident spilt down the back: unseen by the camera this will facilitate Henry Cavills Superman ripping the cowl free to reveal Affleck as Bruce Wayne beneath: a startling moment you will have seen in the last trailer.
This, it is explained is a dream sequence. The look of which, thrillingly, is pure Mad Max, as Batman, clad in calf-length Spaghetti Western-style duster and shouldering a machine gun, walks unbowed through the blizzard to greet an armored juggernaut pulling up in a desert compound thats walled with rusty containers. Weve never seen the Dark Knight look quite like this, yet it feels no less rooted in reality than the previous three Bat-movies.
Empire overhears that we are in Kandahar (in fact Oxford, Michigan, about 30 minutes north of Detroit), so it appears the real-world politics provides a backdrop to super-politics. This is not Batman Forever, this is Batman for real.
Once the dust has settled, Snyder tells us that, deep down, he believes he is making a relationship movie. In a lot of ways Batman v Superman is a very personal concept, he insists, It is just two people trying to understand each others point of view.
Terrios script presents a scenario where we find Bruce Wayne confronted by the consequences of the Black Zero event the in-world sobriquet for the Superman V Zod battle that ran amok through the last reel of Man of Steel. Something Snyders first Superman film had been criticized for presenting all this CG carnage without blinking a super-eyelid. What you didnt see at the end of the movie was the effect that had on the whole world, counters Affleck. Its an acknowledgment that with violence and destruction there is real human cost. What do you do with that?
More to the point, Wayne Enterprises got caught in the carnage, with good people lost people Bruce Wayne knew personally, people he could call family. That feeds an anger and resentment, real-world cause-and-effect working salutary echo of 9/11, instead of, say, a droll megalomaniac robot. Batman may not be coming from an entirely place. Furthermore, there is the whole dilemma about unchecked power. Affleck compares Batmans thinking to a Dick Cheney rationale: If there is a one percent chance that Superman is going to cause death in his being here, it has to be treated like an absolute certainty.
Superman, meanwhile, consider Batmans while judge-and-jury ethic to be little better than the crime hes supposedly fighting. The idea of justice at any coast is not something that he thinks is okay, asserts Cavill, but he wants to solve the problem in the cleanest way possible.
Batman is willing to go, The Chicago Way (an appropriate Untouchables reverence, given Metropolis was filmed in the Windy City). Vigilantism has always been part of his edgy pathology its what put down the Joker and those other psychotic clowns. It gets results. So, using whatever means he has available, or might be made available by interested third parties, Batman will stop at nothing to stop Superman. As Affleck admits, It is quite natural he be the one to cross the line. After all, hes the bad guy.
