Zack Snyder Says The ‘Real Doomsday’ Still Exists In The DCEU

Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice director Zack Snyder claims the “real” Doomsday still exists somewhere within the DCEU. After rebooting Superman with 2013’s Man Of Steel, Snyder was tasked with heading up DC’s burgeoning cinematic universe. The filmmaker had always been a big fan of Batman, so it was a natural decision to pair the two icons together on the big screen for the very first time with BVS.

Snyder was given free reign creatively on Batman V Superman, but upon release, the film received some harsh critical feedback on several fronts, including the relentlessly dark tone, the sometimes-muddled narrative and Jesse Eisenberg’s irritatingly quirky performance as Lex Luthor. The response to the movie is said to have worried the studio, who second-guessed Snyder’s plan for Justice League and the larger franchise. The director stepped away from Justice League after delivering an early cut, and Joss Whedon was brought on to reshape the movie, but it still proved to be a box office letdown for Warner Bros.

Related: What Was Zack Snyder’s Original 5 Movie DCEU Plan?

Batman V Superman also featured an adaptation of the classic comic storyline The Death Of Superman, where the Man of Steel is killed following a battle with vicious alien-killing machine Doomsday. The character appeared in the finale of Snyder’s film as the result of Lex Luthor carrying out experiments on General Zod’s corpse and Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman team up to stop it – at the cost of Superman’s life.

A fan named Maroof Husain recently asked Zack Snyder on his Vero account if the “real” version of Doomsday still existed, and the director confirmed he’s still around somewhere:

The Death Of Superman quickly became an iconic storyline, and several attempts at adapting it into a movie were mounted years before Batman V Superman. The most famous would be Tim Burton’s Superman Lives, where Nicolas Cage’s Superman would be killed by Doomsday around the midway point, only to be resurrected with Krypton technology and face off with true villain Brainiac. Sadly, a ballooning budget and a number of costly flops at Warner Bros led to the movie being cancelled.

Many fans felt Batman V Superman‘s take on Doomsday was disappointing, and resembled some kind of CGI troll from The Hobbit trilogy instead. They may take some comfort in knowing the true vision of Doomsday is out there somewhere in the DCEU, but given that the franchise has already killed Superman once, it feels unlikely the beast will make an appearance in the near future. The next movie for the Superman himself has yet to be decided, though recent rumors suggest Henry Cavill will play a big role in the DCEU moving forward.

More: What Was Zack Snyder’s FULL Plan For the Knightmare Scenes?

Source: Zack Snyder/Vero

About The Author

Padraig Cotter
(3486 Articles Published)

It’s pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now that’s out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if he’d like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site.

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A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games – he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU – where Hawkeye is clearly the best character – to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle.

He’s super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

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