Man Of Steel Was Planned To Begin 5-Movie Story

Published Apr 24, 2018

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Zack Snyder's potential candidates to direct.

The DCEU's future and the overall grand plan for the franchise is something that has come under scrutiny since the poor critical reception to BvS and although much is unknown about Warner Bros.' intentions, it is clear that a big deviation has been made from Snyder's original design. Despite this, MoS and BvS storyboard artist Jay Oliva recently spoke out to counter suggestions that Batman had been drafted into the DCEU early, claiming that Snyder always intended the Caped Crusader to face off against Supes after MoS.

However, while the DCEU's first two movies may have followed Snyder's plan, Oliva has now claimed that the director's original intention was to have a five-film arc beginning with MoS and BvS. Responding to a follower on Twitter bemoaning the lack of a Man Of Steel 2, the artist stated:

"Man of Steel was never meant to have a sequel because it was supposed to be chapter 1 of a 5 chapter story. Notice how BvS follows exactly after MoS? It’s like book two of Harry Potter."

Once again, Oliva is reiterating his stance that BvS is essentially the follow-up MoS, which makes perfect sense seeing as it carries on many of the plot threads established in the first movie. However, it's very interesting to hear that Snyder originally had another three movies planned in the same series. As Oliva suggests in his tweet, this design has since been dropped, due to both poor critical reaction to the DCEU (Knightmare scenes and alterations like these have led to the assumed existence of a mythical "Snyder cut" of the movie.

One crucial question is exactly what other three movies did Snyder have in mind for his opus. Obviously, Justice League would have been the third installment and, since the superhero team-up was originally announced as a two-parter, Justice League 2 was likely to have been film four - the franchise's Goblet of Fire, to use Oliva's analogy. The real mystery lies in what would have been the fifth and final film in Syder's arc. Flashpoint is a distinct possibility given that Aquaman and Wonder Woman were always going to have standalone adventures and, intriguingly, Warner Bros. are pressing ahead with a movie based on this iconic comic story.

Of course now that the DCEU is no longer following Snyder's five-film arc, the possibility of a direct Man Of Steel sequel could be on the table, even if the director himself never intended one to materialize. In hindsight, the 2013 Superman solo venture proved to be one of the better-received entries in the franchise and most DC fans are content with Henry Cavill's performance in the role. Perhaps returning focus solely to Superman in a future movie wouldn't be such a bad movie for the DCEU.