Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill and Zack Snyder Talk Batman v Superman with The Los Angeles Times

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice actors Ben Affleck (Batman) and Henry Cavill (Superman) with director Zack Snyder in an interview with The Los Angeles Times, where they talk on the heavily scrutiny the film has received, how the idea of putting Batman and Superman in a film came about, the strength difference between Batman and Superman when it comes to their fight and much more.

ON THE SCRUTINY OF THE FILM:

There’s been an incredible amount of scrutiny aimed at this movie. From the start, fans have been picking apart every nugget of news, every trailer, every rumor. What does it feel like to be on the other side of that? Is it possible to tune it out?

Snyder: The tweets, comments, articles, blogs — it’s insanity. I tune it out to the extent that, when it’s really dumb, then we go, “OK, someone stomp this [rumor] because it’s stupid.” But mostly I just go, “Thank God they’re talking about the movie.” The fact that they care enough to get online and either rage or praise — that’s just cool for the culture, for the fans.

Affleck: Nobody tweeted about “Casablanca,” and look at how they did. [Laughs] From directing movies myself, at this point I always feel too enmeshed with it, where I get this panicked sense of like, “Is it good? It’s horrible, right? It’s going to bomb.” But I have a little more sense of remove from this. I feel relaxed and I’m proud of the movie and excited for people to see it. It’s a much nicer feeling. I’m so glad I’m not Zack.

ON THE IDEA OF PUTTING BATMAN AND SUPERMAN TOGETHER IN A FILM:

How did the idea of putting Batman and Superman together in one movie first come up?

Snyder: It was born from a conversation about what to do with Superman [after “Man of Steel”], what to face Superman off against next. I was also really interested in expanding the comic book universe. I think Chris [Nolan] did an amazing job with those three Batman movies he did, but to me those worlds are very self-contained. If Green Lantern came into the Dark Knight movies, you’d be like, “That’s weird.”

I really wanted the “Man of Steel” world to be a world where other DC characters could exist. So I was talking to Chris and I said, almost off the cuff, “What if Batman was the bad guy?” And once you say that, you can’t take it back. I mean, who’s a better guy to fight than Batman?

Cavill: What I love about the fact that we’ve introduced these two really important characters as well [in Batman and Wonder Woman], with these two fantastic actors playing them, is that we get to finally expand upon this incredibly rich DC universe. I think it would be a waste just to have one hero from this DC universe and focus on him when there’s so much opportunity to tell really good stories using everyone.

To read the full interview head over to LATimes.com.