In an event that likely was supposed to carry a little more sound and fury, Zack Snyder introduced the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice trailer to a packed house in IMAX theaters across the country. (Well, our theater in Charlotte, North Carolina was filled, to capacity with eager fans). As many of you know, the first official footage for Snyder’s Man of Steel sequel reached the internet early, stealing the thunder of this IMAX event. But Snyder had an ace up his sleeve… additional footage he always planned to tag on the end of the trailer that would be exclusive to this audience.
Obviously, if you still plan to attend one of these events in a different time zone, stop reading now!
Zack Snyder introduced the clip, welcoming fans to the screening of the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice trailer. He was standing in an alley in broad daylight, perched in front of Bruce Wayne’s military-style Batmobile, which looks incredible. After setting the scene, Snyder screened the trailer… only, with this additional bit of footage:
Right after the Batman v Superman logo, the scene returns to Superman (Henry Cavill), close up on his face. His hair is tussled, and instead of being outside in a rainstorm (as he is at the end of the trailer), he’s in what looks like an abandoned warehouse. He looks up. He’s staring at Batman. They both are at eye level. Batman’s eyes continue to glow in that Frank Miller-inspired armor. The two titans charge at each other. The very last shot is a medium shot of the two locking arms, beginning their battle.
Snyder came back on the screen to explain that the trailer would be shown again. He talked about paying attention to the scenes that took place right before the logo, because they were filmed in "native" IMAX presentation. He also said the final shots of Batman and Superman charging at each other were going to be exclusive to this event, and would be "lopped off" of any other versions of the trailer seen online or in theaters. With that, they showed the footage again. And like that, the event was over.
The general consensus after our screening was confusion. The hashtag #BatmanvSuperman stayed on the screen, and half of our theater stayed to make sure something else didn’t come on. One guy loudly got up and exclaimed he was "going to go get my poster," which broke the crowd up.
But it’d be hard to be disappointed. Even if you watched the trailer 25 times on your laptop (which I did), it looked FANTASTIC in IMAX. And yes, the extra footage of Batman (Ben Affleck) and Superman (Henry Cavill) rushing into battle was a pulse racer. Here’s the normal trailer:
Now begins the interminable wait until March 25, 2016.
