Warning: Major Batman Vs. Superman SPOILERS follow
The end of Batman Vs. Superman saw Superman kill Doomsday, but DD also killed Superman (more on that here, with Zack Snyder commenting on the return of Superman in Justice League).
It was pretty early, and [Christopher] Nolan and I had long conversation about it, a really great, sort of philosophical conversation about it. He was really cool because he played an amazing devil’s advocate about why not to do it, and then in the end was like, ‘No you’re right, it’s better to do it.’”
Zack Snyder continues with mention of an alternate ending to Batman Vs. Superman that didn't see Superman die, but yet Snyder didn't specifically explain what it was, instead giving a different example (which resembles Captain America and Hulk).
We had a version that we talked about where [Superman] just—this isn’t it, but where he got frozen and shot into space or something, so he’s kinda gone. Because one of the big things I wanted to make sure of was that as we went into Justice League, Bruce Wayne was the one who was gathering the Justice League. I thought it was really important to have Bruce Wayne be the samurai who goes and finds the other samurai, that to me was important. And with Superman around it’s kinda hard, because Superman’s Superman so it’s kinda hard for Bruce to be like, ‘Yeah I wanna put a Justice League together’. It’s like, ‘Okay, but maybe Superman should be doing that. You’re just a guy. You’re a cool guy, don’t get me wrong, but you’re just a guy.’
Snyder also says another reason he wanted Superman to die was so it would be more relatable to humanity.
“I thought for the evolution of Superman’s character, there’s a crucible that he has to go through to really embrace his humanity or find what is the ultimate thing about being human? The ultimate thing you face is your mortality, and that’s a thing that I think is really cool about this.”
Regarding Warner Bros. reaction to the death of Superman:
“The studio was like, ‘What?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah but, how about I called the movie Dawn of Justice?’, and they’re like ‘Okay, okay, I like what you’re doing, I see what you’re doing.’”
Snyder then talks about bringing Superman back:
“I’m gonna say this: the second you do the first part of it, the death and resurrection are the same thing in a weird way. You have to know. The reason I wanted to do it the way we did it is because I don’t want the audience completely off the hook with it. They still have to go like, ‘What the f—? Are you kidding me?’. There’s a way to signal towards a more definitive resurrection concept, but I didn’t wanna do that because I want that to be real for them when they see it, I want the experience to be real and then the sort of need to be real later on. Suffice it to say there is a plan, but that’s gonna be—you need to wait and see.”
