by: S. Scott Stanikmas

The other day news got around that Warner Bros execs wanted more Batman and less Superman in the upcoming Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. While improbable that re-shoots and major re-editing would be done it looks like it’s not that far off from the truth.

In an interview with The Daily Beast, director Zack Snyder explained that there would be more Dark Knight than Man of Steel in the upcoming team up fight-then-team-up movie. But at least he offered a reasonable explanation for it:

Only in that because it’s a different Batman than the Batman that was in the Chris Nolan movies, so we have a little bit more explaining to do—and you just had a whole Superman movie. But I think only in that way, because you need to understand where Batman is with everything. And that’s more toward the beginning, but it evens back out as it goes on.

That makes a little sense. And I get it – the majority of directors, if given the choice between Batman and Superman, would pick Batman to focus on. But this definitely doesn’t set Superman fans’ minds at ease. It seems more and more like WB is relegating Big Blue to cameo status in his own movie.

Snyder, however, talks about the dynamics that each future Justice Leaguer brings to the film and why they complement each other so well:

They’re actually opposite sides of the same coin. It’s interesting because Batman’s a man and Superman’s a god, if you think about it in those terms. So their relationship is very contentious. What Superman sees as Batman’s limits, Batman sees as Superman trying to control him, acting like an absolute dictator.

What we went after was the humanity of each character. We tried to say, ‘What would Batman have to do to unravel Superman, and what would Superman have to do to unravel Batman?’ Their conflict is based on each others’ understanding of the other’s weakness. The fun of that is when you’re dealing with these mythological creatures — to make them human again, bring them back to earth. And to do that you have to know the rules before you can break them. They have to go all the way to the stratosphere before you can bring them back down.

So what exactly does a more human Batman and Superman mean for the DC Cinematic Universe? And if it does well at the box office could we see Man of Steel 2 dusted off and given a chance? We’ll find out when Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice hits theaters on March 25, 2016.