Before Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was definitely baptized, director Zack Snyder and screenwriter Chris Terrio played around with a lot of alternate titles for the movie. These discarded titles were revealed during a live panel for Justice Con, and at least, in this case, we can say for sure Warner Bros. executives were right to intervene with Snyder’s creative choices.

Snyder says that while they were discussing the movie’s title, the one that Warner executives only seemed to like was "Batman versus Superman," and even shortening it was a point of conflict. “The whole ‘v’ instead of ‘versus,’ it was like this crazy negotiation,” Snyder said, before he suggested something “a little bit more poetic,” like “Son of Sun and Knight of Night.” Of course, the response from the studio, according to Snyder, was “Absolutely not.”

Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill in Batman v Superman
Image via Warner Bros.

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Terrio seemed to have better ideas regarding titles, and went on to discuss the process behind naming the movie in a way where the Justice League connection would be obvious. In Terrio’s words:

“For a while, we talked about actually titling it ‘Justice League: [Subtitle],’ to suggest that this movie was going to be the beginning of the Justice League, even though it didn’t really look like it. Like ‘Justice League: Foundations,’ or ‘Justice League: Rising.'”

Even if Batman v Superman indeed serves the foundation of the Justice League, the movie has its own story, so the final title settled on seems like the most appropriate one after all. Teasing the Justice League could've taken the focus away from the epic duel between Superman (Henry Cavill) and Batman (Ben Affleck), and potentially disappointed fans that would've expected a lot more heroes to show up in the movie.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is streaming now in HBO Max as part of Zack Snyder’s DC trilogy, together with Man of Steel and Zack Snyder’s Justice League. You can check out the full Justice Con panel featuring Snyder and Terrio below:

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