Zack Snyder has revealed several characters he had plans for in his Justice League universe, including Batman villains Catwoman and The Riddler. The director began his foray into DC in 2013 with his Superman film Man of Steel. Following plans for an extended universe, Snyder returned to direct Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice in 2016, and then prepared for the ultimate DC team up in 2017’s Justice League. However, behind-the-scenes problems and a personal tragedy led the filmmaker to exit the project, and Warner Bros. drafted in The Avengers’ Joss Whedon to reshoot it. Snyder’s original plans for the epic movie were ditched and re-worked into a streamlined theatrical cut that flopped with audiences and critics. Following years of fan-campaigns, Zack Snyder’s Justice League, a four-hour directors cut, finally released earlier this year on HBO Max, leaving fans clamouring for more from the retconned continuity of the Snyderverse.
Catwoman and The Riddler, two of Batman’s oldest adversaries, were both introduced at the start of the Caped Crusader’s comic run in the 1940s. On screen, they were two of the rogues featured in the original 1960s Adam West TV show (played by Frank Gorshin and Julie Newmar, respectively). Both villains are considered iconic foes of the Dark Knight, with Catwoman being modernised on screen by Michelle Pfeiffer, Halle Berry and Anne Hathaway, while Jim Carey offered a retro, campy Riddler in 1995’s Batman Forever. While Catwoman got the gritty realism treatment by Christopher Nolan in The Dark Knight Rises, The Riddler has yet to return to the big screen. That is, until both Selina Kyle and the Riddler were confirmed as characters in Matt Reeves' upcoming The Batman. Zoë Kravitz will take on the role of the feline femme fatale, while Paul Dano plays a scarier, more cerebral version of the puzzle-based villain.
In an interview with BroBible, Snyder detailed his plans for the two villains if he’d been allowed to carry on his vision for the DCEU. Snyder confirmed that Catwoman was “someone we talked about” and that he also had a “Riddler concept.” Going into detail about the latter, the director explained his planned Riddler was "kind of like the one who figured out the Anti-Life Equation in the spec scripts,” referencing the plot points introduced in his Justice League movie.
The comments reveal that Snyder had a lot more planned for Batman and his rogues gallery, with The Penguin also confirmed to have been in the director’s thoughts. The Riddler’s role with Darkseid’s anti-life equation plot may have eventually morphed into the part Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor played, but the villain was certainly likely to have a presence down the line. Ben Affleck’s Batman solo film planned to see the Snyderverse version of the character come up against multiple villains, including Joe Manganiello’s Deathstroke, but the project was eventually cancelled and replaced with the new Robert Pattinson-led film.
Snyder’s version of the future DCEU may not ever come to being, but fans of the director’s cut of Justice League are desperate to see the auteur reinstated. The same fan campaigns that caused the so-called Snyder Cut to be released in the first place have switched their focus to continuing the story, with the hashtag “#restorethesnyderverse” popularized online. While the introduction of a new continuity with The Batman causes doubt, the multiverse concept and return of Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck’s Batmen in The Flash gives fans hope of seeing Zack Snyder’s vision for the Batman villains to reach screens one day.
Source: BroBible
