Why do we put so much stock in what Kevin Smith has to say about Batman vs. Superman? Well, Kevin Smith and Batman vs. Superman go way back. First of all, the writer/director/actor/comic book author/podcaster is a renowned, lifelong comic book aficionado. He loves the art-form, and all things superhero. He loves Batman, and he loves Superman, too – so much so that he worked on a script called Superman Lives in 1996. That version – which would have featured Nicolas Cage as Clark and his alter-ego – eventually fell to Tim Burton to direct, who promptly had Smith’s script entirely re-worked, until the production fell apart in 2000. Smith also wrote a Green Hornet script in 2004 – but the project never got off the ground, and his story went into comic book form instead.
Smith also loves Watchmen, and that love exploded into Zack Snyder fandom when he delivered the film version in 2009. Inevitably, he also loved Man Of Steel. So, given that, back in the day, Smith helped kickstart the career of current Batman, Ben Affleck – by casting him in Mallrats and executive producing Good Will Hunting – it’s safe to say he is all over Batman vs. Superman like a rash. Regardless of how his own body of work is thought of, this guy is a big part of the circle of trust. He is inside the room.
That’s why, when Kevin Smith talks about Batman vs. Superman on his Hollywood Babble-On Podcast, everybody pays attention – particularly when it is shortly after the first reveal of the Batsuit, which Smith had already seen.
“As you may remember, I saw a photo of the Batsuit many, many months ago, and many people asked online, ‘Is that the picture you saw?’ No, that is a very cool picture, but that is not the picture I saw. They put it on a fake roof-top, and they lit it up. But it was in colour, and you could see every piece of detail. So I’ve seen some people online go, ‘Why is this f***ing suit any different than the Chris Nolan Batsuit – it’s all one f***ing colour!’ It’s like, ‘Dude, that’s a monochrome photo. You know what that means? One chrome.
“That’s not a representation of what the suit looks like. So, what the suit looks like, and I was always kind of keeping quiet until they revealed it, but they’ve revealed it. And you can kind of see…and anybody that…you’ve seen some people take a picture and colour it online. If you want to see what this f***ing suit looks like, you just go to Frank Miller’s ‘The Dark Knight Returns’, go to the third book ‘Hunt The Dark Knight’…it’s the exact f***ing outfit he’s wearing. That’s why I hugged that guy all those months ago.”
To fully explain why he “hugged that guy all those months ago”, Smith expanded on the point with MTV:
“That costume is the smart way to go. Number one, it’s a crowd favourite – a big fan favourite. Anyone who knows ‘The Dark Knight Returns’ – and that’s a lot of people at this point, thanks to the work being out for years, and also the cartoon movie – that’s the Batman costume we’ve always dreamed about seeing in cinema.”