When Ben Affleck joined the DC Films universe as Batman, he didn’t come alone. He brought along with him Argo screenwriter Chris Terrio, who took a pen to both Batman v Superman and Justice League. You can argue that he must’ve done a crappy job on both since they did terribly at the box office, but that’s not entirely his fault. That’s especially true when it comes to Justice League, which we know underwent massive structural changes upon Zack Snyder’s departure, and Terrio is finally speaking out about all of the things he hated about Joss Whedon’s cut of the movie.
Speaking with Vanity Fair, Terrio started off by talking about his time on Batman v Superman, a title that he didn’t like from the start and thinks contributed to the negative feelings about it…
“I heard [the title] and I thought, It just sounds self-important and clueless in a way. Tone-deaf. The intention of the film was to do something interesting and dark and complex, not quite as Las Vegas, bust ’em up, WWE match as ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.’”
In what would become a recurring theme for Terrio, he says the finished Batman v Superman was missing large portions of his script that included sorely-needed characterization…
“I was proud of the script when I completed it, but it turns out that when you remove the 30 minutes that give the characters motivation for the climax, the film just doesn’t work.”
“So this house of cards that had been built in order to motivate this clash between America’s two favorite heroes made no sense at all. That was what happened with ‘Batman/Superman.’ The movie was always was going to be dark. There were always going to be people who just didn’t want to see that version of a comic book world, and I get that. But what hurt was the criticism that the script was not coherent, because when I turned in the script to the studio—which they, by all accounts, were happy with—it made sense.”
Terrio says the reaction and performance of Batman v Superman drove Warner Bros. execs to take a more active creative role in Justice League. Whedon was hired to punch up the script and make it a brighter, more Marvel-esque film. When Snyder’s family suffered a tragedy and he dropped out, Whedon took over and made the film his own. So much so that Terrio got angry enough to demand his name be removed from it…
“I went into such depression when the film was taken away and rewritten,” Terrio said. “But I didn’t even feel entitled to be depressed, because Zack and Debbie [Snyder] were dealing with their family tragedy. Measured against that, losing the film that you wrote seems like nothing at all. But it did hurt. It hurts to think that I cared so much about these characters and worked on nothing else for a very long time.”
“I didn’t realize how much of the film was going to be changed—or vandalized, in my opinion. It became clear as I spoke to various actors that it was a wholesale dismantling of what had been there before. I did not hear from anyone who said it was a pleasant experience.”
After finally viewing Whedon’s cut of the film for himself, Terrio said, “I immediately called my lawyer and said, ‘I want to take my name off the film.’ [The lawyer] then called Warner Bros. and told them that I wanted to do that.”
Terrio never did take his name off, wanting to avoid further scandal and harm to the actors and craftspeople who worked hard on Justice League.
Turning to things that are more positive, Terrio says he’s “awfully happy” that Zack Snyder’s Justice League was released. Like many, he points to the Cyborg storyline as a highlight and the heart of the movie, whereas Whedon removed it entirely…
“It was always the heart of the film to me, and just meant so much to me personally, because so much of my heart and life were put into that story. That is the thing about this version of ‘Justice League,’ that none of it was done cynically or as a money grab, or an attempt to sell Happy Meal toys. It really was personal for me and for Zack and for many of the actors.”
As we know, Zack Snyder’s Justice League hit HBO Max last month and has been receive positively by fans and most critics. That said, Terrio’s time with the DCEU was obviously rough and who knows if he’ll want to go back to it ever again.
