14 DAY TRIAL // Aside from the first official trailer for “Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice” (video below) and a handful of official character posters, Warner Bros. hasn’t done much open promoting for the film yet. Seeing how it’s scheduled for a March 2016 release, there’s no rush - but that doesn’t mean that some viral marketing wouldn’t come in handy.
Instead of putting out material on the usual channels, it seems that Warners is focused on stirring up positive hype online, via silent releases of viral photos. In April, we got 2 guerrilla-style character posters of Batman and Superman, which Warners didn’t even bother to acknowledge publicly.
Now, we have 2 more of the same, and the studio is still mum on the topic. But they’re very important in terms of telling us the direction the film is going to go.
Superman is the villain
As speculated months ago, “Dawn of Justice” will paint Superman as the villain and Batman as the good guy, at least in a first stage. After all, Supes did destroy half of Metropolis in his fight with General Zod at the end of “Man of Steel” (2012) and someone should hold him accountable for those thousands of deaths.
Apparently, that someone will be Batman, called upon to right the wrong not by authorities but by the very people who once used to root for Superman. That much is clear from these new posters, which emerged online on Instagram and are believed to have come directly from Warners.
You can see that the Batman poster is actually a wanted one-sheet from the authorities, who are looking for Batman for vigilante acts of justice. It’s been painted over by people hailing him as a hero.
The Superman poster, on the other hand, makes it clear that he’s fresh out of supporters, as people have taken red paint to it to proclaim him a false god (like in the trailer), who must be brought to justice for what he’s done.
This direction, as astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson explained in April, was the logical one, because you can’t just have superheroes running around destroying cities, even if they do it for the greater good, and not expect them to be held accountable for it in the public eye.
A bigger, more dangerous enemy is coming
However, that doesn’t mean that the entire movie will be focused on the conflict between the 2. The film’s official synopsis hinted at a bigger threat that the two will have to face together, presumably in the third act, once they’ve settled their differences.
Said threat could be Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor, but it could also be some villain whose involvement is being kept a secret.
“Dawn of Justice” has finished shooting and is now in post-production, so chances of spoilers via paparazzi photos are slim to none right now.
However, more details are bound to be revealed or at least teased in future promo materials, like trailers and teasers. Expect those in the second half of the year.
Directed by Zack Snyder, “Dawn of Justice” stars Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Eisenberg, Amy Adams and Gal Gadot.
HOT #BatmanvSuperman #Promo #Art #Batman A photo posted by Heroic Hollywood (@heroichollywood) on Jun 10, 2015 at 10:48am PDT
HOT #BatmanvSuperman #Promo #Art #Superman A photo posted by Heroic Hollywood (@heroichollywood) on Jun 10, 2015 at 10:48am PDT
