Well done, that's exactly it IMO! He wants to give the sequel an air of importance, a uniqueness if you will, as if saying "this isn't just a sequel but rather....an evolution of the original story" and you (the audience) better not miss it when it comes out in (god willing) 2027. Personally I could careless for these kinds of semantics but I am hyped to see one of my favourite versions of Superman (David's) and Lex (Hoult's) on the screen again.
As I said in a previous post, it's what he does! He tends to deny or obfuscate things unnecessarily to the point where he gets himself tangled up in his own web of semantics and then he doubles down on the whole thing! That's why it rubs so many people online the wrong way. I honestly don't think he does it on purpose (not most of the time atleast).
My recommendation is not to get hung up on his words and waste precious time trying to decipher them, it's a waste of time and a waste of life and life is too short.