Location: Unknown
Time: Unknown
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As Shadow, Starlight and Twilight returned from their travel Shadow spoke up band said
"Now it's time to see the beginnings of what will eventually be known as the DCEU, are the two of you ready because this first part will take a while to explain."
"We're ready." Both Twilight and Starlight said.
"Ok we will first start off with the film that started it all Man of Steel. It was the year 2009 and the film studio Warner Brothers were looking for a way to compete with their rivals over at another studio named Disney, who had their own superhero film franchise of interconnected movies in Marvel Studios. So they began planning to bring back one of the most well known DC Superheroes back to the big screens, Superman." Shadow explained to them.
"Superman, wow what a cool sounding name." Starlight said imminently drawn into the story so far
"But the studio was hesitant on doing it as their last outing in bring the character to theaters didn't go so well." Shadow continued "But they decided to give it a try and so they set to work getting the movie developed and hired a writer named David S. Goyer to write the screenplay for the movie and in October of 2010 hired none other than Zack Snyder to direct the film and began casting actors and actress in November of that year to help bring these fictional characters to life."
Both Twilight and Starlight remained silent as they were so bought into the story being told to them.
"First up was The Man of Steel himself Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman, and the actor who was cast to fill these very enormous shoes was Henry Cavill. Snyder said in speaking of Cavill " He's the perfect choice to don the cape and the S shield." Shadow said "Other casting included Amy Adams as the fearless reporter/ love interest Lois Lane, Harry Lennix as the brave but mysterious General Calvin Swanwick, Diane Lane as the loving adoptive mother of Clark Kent, Russell Crowe as the biological father of Kal-El, and rounding out the casting is Micheal Shannon as the villainous General Zod."
Both Twilight and Starlight shivered at the mention of Zod's name.
Shadow then started to continued the story "Filming of the film began in August of 2011 and would continue until February of 2012. Famous composer Hans Zimmer was brought on to compose the score for the film. Man of Steel was released on June 24, 2013 worldwide. It grossed $668 million worldwide making it the highest grossing solo Superman film ever."
"So this film was a success for him then." Starlight said.
"Yep." Shadow said "But what Snyder's fans didn't know that the biggest movie was on the horizons and was about to blow people minds with what's coming up."
"And what's that?" Twilight asked.
"A month after the release of Man of Steel Zack Snyder had a panel at San Diego Comic-Con." Shadow said , but before she could continued Starlight asked her a question.
"What's Comic Con?"
"Comic Con is a three day convention, where fans celebrate their love for various form of media such as comic books, anime, movies, and tons of other things. It's the definitive place for movie studio to go to to announce something big that would be the talk of the convention for the entire week or as people describe it as "breaks the internet." Shadow explained
"Wow." Both Twilight and Starlight said.
"Warner Brothers, the studio that owns the right to the DC Characters, were finishing up a panel, but decided to end it in a very big way." Shadow said.
Both Twilight and Starlight were very excited about something that could be a very big announcement for these fans.
Shadow then continued by saying " At the end of the panel Zack Snyder came out on stage in front of thousands of DC fans to officially announce that he was beginning work on Man of Steel 2, the crowd of course became very excited at this news but nothing could possible prepare them for what would happen next. Zack Snyder invited Harry Lennix up onto the stage to read something written down on a piece of paper."
"What was written on the paper?" Starlight asked
Shadow smiled and said "A passage from one of the most popular graphic novel/comic book of all time, THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS. Harry gets up to the microphone and everyone in the room is silent waiting for what he is going to say. Then he starts to read the passage."
"What did he passage say?" Twilight asked
Shadow looked to the two of them and said "I want you to remember, Clark, in all the years to come, in all of your most private moments. I want you to remember, my hand, at your throat, I want you to remember, the one man, who beat you. Then the room's lights turned off and up on the screen on the stage Superman's logo appeared, but then another logo appeared from behind it, a logo of a bat. Once that happens the entire room of people suddenly broke out in applause and began to cheer and clap, completely blown away from what had just happened. And with that one announcement DC had won Comic Co, beating their rival Marvel that year."
"What does the bat logo mean to those fans?" Starlight asked.
"It means that the two greatest superheroes in comic book history will finally face off against one another for the first time in live action and in theaters, Batman vs Superman." Shadow said
Both Twilight and Starlight began to become very excited at this, even though they don't really know who this Batman character is.
"After that Zack got to work searching for the right actor to bring his version of the caped crime fighter to life. The past four actors who played Batman or as I should call him by his alter ego Billionaire Bruce Wayne, were fairly young, but what Zack wanted for his Batman is an older actor, one who could portray his version of Batman who has been fighting crime for a long time, who is at the end of his rope and is now willing to break his own code to strike fear into his enemies."
Both Twilight and Starlight were hugging one another shriving in fear based on the description that was given to them just now.
"After many months of searching Zack finally found his Bruce Wayne/Batman in none other than actor Ben Affleck. He believed that Ben had the right look and physic he was looking for to portray his Batman." Shadow said "After that he got to work finding other actors to bring the other members of the Justice League to life."
"What's the Justice League?" Starlight asked.
"The Justice League is a group formed by some of the greatest heroes of the DC Universe. The members included have changed throughout the years with different iterations of the group, but the trinity would always be on it no matter what."
"The Trinity?" asked Twilight
"The Trinity is the three most popular DC heroes ever, Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman." Shadow said with a big smile on her face.
"Cool." Both Twilight and Starlight said
"And speaking of Wonder Woman." Shadow continued "Zack Snyder found his Wonder Woman, who is one of the strongest fighters in the DC Universe in Gal Gadot. He also finished casting the rest of the Justice League as well. Ezra Miller was cast as Barry Allen/The Flash, the fastest hero ever, Jason Mamoa was cast as Arthur Curry/Aquaman the rightful king of Atlantis, and finally Ray Fisher as the bio-mechanical Cyborg."
Both Twilight and Starlight became very excited at those casting.
"Of course with every hero needs a great villain and Jesse Eisenberg was cast as Superman's arch enemy Lex Luthur. And to round out the new casting of characters is Jeremy Irons as Alfred Pennyworth Bruce Wayne's trusted butler and assistance. Amy Adams, Diane Lane, and Harry Lennix also came back to reprise their roles from the previous film." Shadow said
"Wow, what an amazing cast." Starlight said.
"The score for Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice was done by Hans Zimmer with some added help from another composer, Junkie XL." Shadow said. "The movie was then released on March 25, 2016."
"Wow with all that it must of been one of Zack Snyder's best film ever right?" Twilight said.
Suddenly Shadow's face turned from a smile into a deep frown." Unfortunately for Snyder before he could release his movie which was supposed to be a three hour movie. The Studio came in and told him to make it sorter, so Zack ended up cutting thirty minutes from his final cut and ended up having to rearranging scenes from the movie. The final product ended up being a messy movie that film critics panned and disliked a lot. But the movie did end up making about $876 million worldwide on a $250 million budget."
"Wow, so it was still successful." Twilight said with a smile.
Shadow again frowned and said "Yes it was, but the studio saw it as a complete failure."
"What!" Starlight exclaimed "Why?"
"Because it didn't make a $1 billion that's why. So they got extremely worried about the direction Snyder was taking the next movie he was going to direct which was Justice League, which will be the start of many fights between Zack and the studio in what direction the film should go." Shadow said. "As Batman V Superman set up a lot of scenes that Snyder was going to revise including some of the most controversial scenes in the movie which included, Superman's death at the hands of Doomsday, the Knightmare timeline where Batman is one of few surviving heroes on a ruined earth where it's ruled over by an evil and corrupted Superman, and of course what a lot of people who hates the movie is the worst ever which of course is seeing Batman using guns and kills people/criminals with no remorse, where as in the comics Batman has mortal code about not killing and not ever using a gun."
Both Twilight and Starlight started to get very angry at the studio for the way their were thinking about Zack and his movies.
"But eventually Snyder did eventual release the full three hour version of his film, as he calls it the Ultimate edition, which was received better than the theatrical edition by both critics and by the fans of Zack Snyder." Shadow said.
Both Twilight and Starlight smiled at this.
"But, unfortunately for Zack the worse to in terms of both his professional career and in his personal life." Shadow said with a sad look on her face.