During his surprise appearance in Hall H at WB's Comic-Con panel, director Zack Snyder was very careful with the words he chose to describe the sequel to Man of Steel. A logo was shown onscreen after actor Henry Lennix read a piece from The Dark Knight Returns, but an official title for the sequel was never announced. ComicBook.com did some detective work to see what domains the WB have and have not registered, and they have pretty convincing evidence that the studio will go with the title Batman vs. Superman.
Man of Steel scribe David S. Goyer threw out two possible combinations for the title during the Superman 75th Anniversary panel:
“So over in Hall H at the Warner Bros.–I guess most people know now–at the end of the Warner Bros. panel, Zack came out and he brought Henry Lennix, who plays General Swanwick in Man of Steel and we–actually, Henry read a bit from [The Dark Knight Returns] and so the next film we’re maki
ng, we’re already in pre-production, comes out in summer of 2015 and it’s–we’re actually not sure whether the title is Superman vs. Batman or Batman vs. Superman but yes, it’s–that rematch, that combination, the two guys onscreen and that’s happening.”
ComicBook.com goes on to explain:
David S. Goyer only gave two examples of what the title could be, so we did a little research, figuring that Warner Bros. would likely have registered the domain name that they would want to use for the title. It turns out that Warner Bros. owns both SupermanVsBatman.com and BatmanVsSuperman.com, which could be used to protect comic book titles as well as movie titles. However, when we added movie to the end, we found out that Warner Bros. had only registered BatmanVsSupermanMovie.com but not SupermanVsBatmanMovie.com.
CBM also points out that BatmanVsSupermanMovie.com "was created by Warner Bros. in 2002, and was updated on November 8, 2012."
This all is pretty obvious stuff. I don't expect anyone's jaw to be on the floor right now. But does Batman getting first billing mean he'll be getting more screen time too? It is expected that this film will introduce a new Bruce Wayne. With at least some form of an origin story to tell, the answer is likely 'yes.'
Which title do you prefer? Are there any other established Batman/Superman story titles that you think the WB should choose instead?