Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice opens this Friday and is already garnering rave reviews at early screenings, but the final cut of the film could have been very different. Zack Snyder recently revealed who — besides Jena Malone — was cut from the Batman V Superman storyline. While Malone’s scenes were already filmed and will be included in the home video version, there were two very high profile characters who never made the final draft: Joker and Riddler. It’s probably for the best they were cut considering this is a movie which already has a lot of villains.
Zack Snyder told Collider:
“The Joker and The Riddler both came close to being in this movie. We talked about the possibility of putting them in. [Screenwriter] Chris Terrio and I talked about it a lot and felt that their mythological presence is felt in the movie and that’s cool, but I didn’t want to get my eye too far off the ball because I needed to spend the time, frankly, with Batman and Superman to understand the conflict.”
Some signs of Joker and Riddler still made it into the movie. We noticed this question mark graffiti in the leaked trailer:
And a rumor circulated over a year ago that Jared Leto’s Joker would be referenced (but not appear) in the film. This seems to be the case, as Bruce Wayne mentions “freaks dressed like clowns” in one of these clips, and we’ve seen this defaced Robin costume which is reminiscent of Joker killing Jason Todd in “A Death in the Family,” which happened in the comics long enough ago that this shouldn’t be a spoiler.
Batman V Superman: Freaks Dressed Like Clowns opens March 25, 2016.
(Via Collider)