Akiva Goldsman on his exceptionally dark version of Batman vs Superman

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

For every superhero movie that has been released over the past two decades (and there are a lot), there are just as many which didn't make it to the big-screen. One such project was BATMAN VS SUPERMAN, and while we did eventually get a version of the film courtesy of Zack Snyder in 2016, the project was actually in development in the early '00s under the direction of Wolfgang Petersen (TROY) with Colin Farrell and Jude Law said to be playing Batman and Superman, respectively.

SE7EN screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker had penned the initial draft of the BATMAN VS SUPERMAN project, but after he excited, Akiva Goldsman (Star Trek: Picard) took over. While speaking with Collider, Goldsman dropped a few details on the long-abandoned project, which he claimed was going to be "the darkest thing you've ever seen." Whoa now.

I wrote on […] this version of Batman v Superman [around 2001or 2002]— when Colin Farrell was cast as Batman and Jude Law was cast as Superman and Wolfgang Petersen was directing —we were in prep and it was the darkest thing you’ve ever seen. It started with Alfred’s funeral and Bruce has fallen in love and renounced being Batman, the Joker kills his wife, and then you discover it was all a lie. Just that the love itself was constructed by the Joker to break [Bruce].

"It was a time where you would be able to get these sort of stories together in script form but they couldn’t quite land in the world," Goldsman continued. "Somehow, the expectations of the object — whether they be audience or corporate or directorial — it wasn’t landing quite in the way I think we imagined when we put them on the page." It's important to remember that Akiva Goldsman is also the man who wrote BATMAN & ROBIN (as well as co-wrote BATMAN FOREVER), so perhaps he felt the need to compansate for that film by going overly dark with his next stab at the franchise.