When it was first revealed that Argo scribe Chris Terrio would write Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League, the response was good (he is an Oscar winner, after all), but many wondered whether he had the know how to launch the DC Films Universe. Well, talking to The Wall Street Journal, the writer shed some light on just how much of a comic book fan he really is. "The first movie I ever saw was Superman 2. I almost drowned in a pool at age four playing Aquaman. I went away from comics for most of my life. But I stayed on top of super-hero movies. The ones that intrigued me the most were the [Christopher] Nolan’s films. They were ways of asking interesting questions in a genre form. We stand on the shoulders of those films in a way. Nolan helped establish a space in which super-hero movies can be taken more seriously. We thought a lot about those films, to a point where I had to stop watching The Dark Knight because I found I was rewriting it."
"It’s impossible to know everything in the DC universe, but I threw myself into it and tried to learn as much as possible and I found such intelligence in so many of the comics," Terrio continued. "Obviously Frank Miller is a well-known and respected writer who influences this film very directly. Also writers like Grant Morrison, who asks difficult philosophical questions in an extremely smart way. I tried to take in as much as I could while also keeping a little bit of an outsider’s eye." While he may not be a monthly subscriber to Batman and Superman's comics then, the writer went on to discuss how he views these characters, proving that he still understands them despite that.
"It’s almost archetypal. In Batman’s origin [the murder of his parents], the primary thing I was thinking about is the fact he falls. It’s the primary metaphor for Western literature: There was a moment before and then everything fell. That brings up questions of Superman. I began to think Batman and Superman occupy different parts of the mythic imagination. In superhero stories, Batman is Pluto, god of the underworld, and Superman is Apollo, god of the sky. That began to be really interesting to me — that their conflict is not just due to manipulation, but their very existence. In the end, there’s a common humanity which I think is discovered at a certain moment in the film."
As for the introductions of both Batman and Wonder Woman into the world of Man of Steel, Terrio explained that he didn't want to create a world where viewers are suddenly told that these characters exist; instead, he wanted to make it clear that they were always there in the background. In the case of Diana Prince, that meant skipping over a length origin story. "With [Wonder Woman alter ego] Diana Prince, I thought it would be better if we met her as a civilian first and involved her in the plot in a way that felt like a thriller. She’s a mysterious woman interested in the same things Bruce Wayne is. The fun of it is if you don’t immediately reveal her in superhero guise, you get to revel in the moment when she finally does reveal herself. If you bring in a character in a kinetic way, then you accept the reality more easily." What do you guys think of these comments?