Warner Bros.
As far as modern comic book movies are concerned, cinematic scribe David S. Goyer is one of the most important screenwriters of the last quarter century, having written the three Wesley Snipes Blade films, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy, and Man of Steel. If it weren’t for advice from Nolan, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice may have been on his credits, too.
After directing The Dark Knight trilogy, Christopher Nolan moved into a producer role for Man of Steel, which saw him hire Goyer as the project’s writer and Zack Snyder as its director.
Despite being directly involved in hiring Snyder as the next Superman director — perhaps not as the architect of the DCEU, which was what Snyder ultimately became follow Man of Steel‘s release after Warner Bros. tried to speed-run its way to a Marvel-style cinematic universe — the iconic Oppenheimer filmmaker apparently warned Goyer not to get involved with the sequel, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice .
According to Goyer, Nolan thought it would have been “confusing” to work on two different Batman movies.
“I remember Chris advising me not to work on the Affleck Batman, just because it’s confusing. We did one and just stick with that,” Goyer said during an interview on the Happy Sad Confused podcast.
Whether or not you take Goyer at his word ultimately depends on whether or not you believe that’s how Nolan actually felt. Having just directed the most successful superhero trilogy of all time in Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, perhaps Nolan could read the tea leaves on the direction that Snyder planned to take the character in, which controversially featured the Caped Crusader abandoning his “no killing” rule.
Ironically, despite eschewing traditional aspects of the character, Ben Affleck’s performance as Bruce Wayne/Batman is widely considered to be one of the standout components of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice .