Kevin Smith hosted a Yahoo! Q&A session over the weekend, promoting the release of Man of Steel on DVD and Blu-ray (watch it below) and has since made a few comments on his regular podcast (via Coming Soon) regarding the coming Batman vs. Superman sequel and his praise for the new Batsuit that will be worn by Ben Affleck as Batman is garnering the most attention.
“I saw the Batman costume. More than that I saw a picture of [Ben Affleck] in the costume. Now, I don’t want to give anything away ’cause that is up to them and stuff, but I am going to say this, I instantly bear hugged him (Snyder). You have not seen this costume in a movie on film before, and for a comic book fan it was mind bending. I was like ‘Get out of here, only you have enough power to pull this off.’ Because everyone always like does this Matrix/X-Men black armor…It was fantastic. I’m already a flag waver for this movie, but the costume, it blew my mind. I think everyone is just gonna be like ‘Holy shit!’ It’s its own thing, man. It’s like we haven’t been down this path at all. I was so elated….Even the hardest core “Fuck all this†person will be like ‘alright, I’m ready.'”
During the Q&A, director Zack Snyder made an offhand comment saying, “Lex loves calling him an alien,” which would seem to confirm Lex Luthor will be the film’s villain, which has long been suspected up to and including rumors of Bryan Cranston and Mark Strong being considered for the role.
Finally, heading into the weekend it was revealed Adam Driver (“Girls”, Frances Ha) was being considered for the role of Dick Grayson (aka Nightwing), whom I understand to be Batman’s sidekick Robin who eventually has a falling out with The Dark Knight and eventually goes off to do his own thing under the moniker of Nightwing. Now, Ezra Miller (We Need to Talk About Kevin) and Penn Badgley (Easy A) are rumored contenders as well.
Batman vs. Superman is slated for a July 17, 2015 release.
