#3 How will you avoid the same mistakes of the first movie?
One of the biggest complaints from the film’s harshest critics was about the movie’s vast destruction, which audiences didn’t seem to mind. Zack Snyder even said “We almost destroyed the world last time, now what!?’ As stated previously, there’s an audience expectation already set in for this sequel. How can you top two Kryptonians fighting and toppling buildings? Especially when one of your characters is just a guy? One way, Batman does have a car, a plane, and a boat all modified with gadgets. Is the bulk of our Batman/Superman fighting going to end up being Batman in a car blowing things up vs. Superman? I hope not, but it certainly seems likely.
Another issue that some took with Man of Steel was its non-linear storytelling, which I found refreshing for a superhero movie, but the sequel can’t get away with it. Even a hokey “Clark watches a news report on the Waynes’ death” sequence would feel out of place and cause much eye rolling. The one point where this movie could deviate from a sequential story is in digging into Bruce Wayne’s past, but since everyone (!!) already knows that story, it seems a moot point to show it once again.
A final detractor for many about Man of Steel was “it was too serious.” You want to know how to make something even more serious? Add Batman to it. The Christopher Nolan films have influenced the character enough that I can’t imagine a non-serious version of him being portrayed on screen. So the filmmakers should counter Batman’s super serious demeanor with a cheerful and charming Superman, which I don’t think is too hard to do given the end of the film where it begins to establish his playful side.
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