Superman Homepage

2015 Movie News Archives

December 6, 2015: SPOILERS: Michael Wilkinson Talks About "Batman v Superman" and "Justice League"

Costume Designer Michael Wilkinson attended the Comic Con Experience 2015 in Brazil this weekend, where he spoke with Brazilian website Omelete about both "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" and the upcoming "Justice League" movies. He did reveal some very explosive SPOILER information about "desert Batman" and The Flash. Read on, but be warned, there are spoilers...

First up, some information about the Superman costume for "Batman v Superman"...

Is the Superman costume the same one from Man of Steel?

MW: It's a little bit different. The amazing thing about working on these big franchise films is that everytime you do another, you get to make the costumes even more compelling and more exciting. The one thing I love about my job is that we get to explore new costume technologies and new ways of making costumes. Two years later, there's new materials, new digital technologies. We use a lot of 3D printing and we scan our actors and we build costumes in the computer.

So, with the Superman costume, we have a new material. The suit is a little bit more sheer, so you really get the sense of this metal undersuit coming through the blue oversuit and we have a new fabric for the cape. And, also, Zack wanted to include a Joseph Campbell quote in the suit, so there's a quote from Joseph Campbell: 'Where we thought to stand alone, we will be with all the world' and we decided to translate that into Kryptonian and we put it through the 'S' on his chest, through his cuffs, his belt, through his bicep, just to give a little extra something for the fan with very sharp vision to appreciate.

Spoiler hightlights...

One of the ideas I like from the comics about The Flash's costume is just one red uniform and the bolt. There's a sense of movement in the ears and all that. How do you translate that to the screen and to make it modern and different?

MW: Well, I'm not really at the liberty to talk about The Flash right now, but it's something that you'll be seeing in the future in our films. You do get a glimpse of him, of course, in Batman v Superman. But I'm really looking forward to taking the amazing, iconic costume for The Flash and interpreting it in a fresh way where Ezra Miller is playing The Flash. He's an extraordinary performer, he has a sort of interesting sense of humor and the youth that will be great for Barry Allen and I think he's going to make a great Flash.

"It's a different silhouette than the other ones and I think that's what makes the Justice League so amazing. They all are different, together they are super strong, but they all have their own different fighting styles, their own different look, their own different physique. The Flash is more like an Olympic marathon runner or something like that. He's shredded and he's not as bulky and as huge as a lot of the other guys in the League.

Batman What about the nightmare Batman? It's a different uniform than the Batman we are seeing here?

MW: "It is a different look. Zack had a great idea of this sort of nightmare-ish vision, almost a vision of the future, a post-apocalyptic vision. It's like a dream that Ben has, so we wanted to, it has almost a Mad Max quality to it where it's like the end of the world, trying to survive and then of course Superman and his minions come, so it's sort of a way of representing the amazing amounts of, the sort of obsessive quality that Bruce Wayne has about the threat of Superman. In this film, Superman, of course he's normally seen as a figure of hope, a positive thing, but in this film, his motivations, the consequences of his actions are really being questioned by the world. Is he a savior? Or is he a dangerous alien with unknown intentions? And this becomes an obsession for Bruce Wayne. And he really wants to sort it out. So, it's manifested in this sort of incredible dream that Zack decided to create.

"This film takes place about 8 months after Man of Steel. This cataclysmic event at the end of Man of Steel. And now we're in a world where the consequences of that event are being processed. Many people were killed in that event and a lot of people see Superman as being responsible for those deaths. And that's something we deal with in this film. It's the nature of power, the responsibility that comes with having this incredible superpowers. It's a film that's not only an amazing summer blockbuster with incredible action scenes, but it's also about ideas and I think that's what's going to make it such an appealing film for people.

Read the full English transcript of the interview at ComicBookMovie.com