BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE

PREPARATION MONTAGE

Waist-level shot beside a shirtless Bruce over a large tyre on the ground. He brings a sledgehammer down twice on the rubber. Pan up to a shoulder shot emphasising his tensing back muscles as he adjusts the tool in his hands. Wide shot of the dark concrete environment, furnished with exercise equipment to tell us this is Bruce’s gym, presumably somewhere in the Batcave. Water seems to be leaking from above. He slams the sledgehammer down on the tyre yet again.

Hard hit of piano and low strings. This begins a piano pattern that lasts for most of the track, but when one listens closely, it is actually a fast, low-pitched repetition of the Codex Motif to entwine with Bruce forging the Kryptonite into a weapon using the mineral’s theme.

Close-up on a folder on the Bat-computer titled “Lex Luthor”. A mouse hovers over to select it. Wider view of many new files, and Bruce selects the folder titles “Xenomaterials”. Four new images fill the screen displaying the molecular structure of Kryptonite. Cut to scrolling up on the images to arrive on a spinning 3D model of the rock titled “Xenomaterial Radiation Pattern”. We now know these files contain Lex’s research on Kryptonite, conveniently telling Batman precisely how to make weapons from this mineral, just as Lex intended.

Close-up on the Kryptonite itself, now spinning too in a holster to connect the shots. Pull out as it stops spinning, and rack focus to the large machine pointing at the mineral. The background beyond is filled with the red of the computer displays in the Batmobile garage.

Hard, angry hit of Bruce Wayne Motif on percussion, vocals, and brass.

Low-angle medium shot on Bruce, still shirtless, as he pulls himself up on some bars, grunting with each straining pull. We can see more of his scars here, including one especially brutal on his shoulder. Pan down to see the four huge 45lb weights chained to his waist, totalling 180lb, adding to his body weight (presumably Ben Affleck’s 230lb) to a total of 410lb.

Cut the machine, extending a small barrel that lights up and projects an intensely bright beam of energy. Wide shot of the machine from behind to give us a good look at how large and imposing the device is, silhouetted by the bright light behind it. Bruce, no longer shirtless, is working the controls in the left frame, and he turns to watch his work unfold.

High-angle backwards tracking shot of a stack of weights with a pile of chains on top, and we pan up to see Bruce pushing them towards us, sweating and panting.

Return to the barrel of the laser, further out. Pan left to see the beam fire down the Batmobile causeway to its target in the workshop, too bright to see. Cut to the Kryptonite in its holster, bombarded by the beam cutting into it to connect the earlier shot of the holstered mineral. Sparks shower wildly.

High-angle shot on Bruce’s hands, pulling a large rope. Pan up to see him exerting. Shoulder shot to see he is pulling the same tyre across the gym with the rope.

Low-angle shot on two metal cylindrical objects in Bruce’s hands, and he slides one into the other with a satisfying click. He is clearly assembling something complex and high-tech. As we later learn, this is the shaft of the Kryptonite spear, telling us it must be constructed with a highly reinforced design.

Codex Motif becomes clearer on high strings, interspersed with vocal, brass, and percussion hits on top.

Side shot of Bruce, on his back as he bench-presses a massive weight. He grimaces and grunts with effort.

Shot of Bruce’s hand, clicking a device to trigger an blast in the glass container in the foreground. His hand lowers and we push on the container to see it fill with green gas, telling us that Bruce has managed to vaporize the Kryptonite into a gaseous form.

Low-angle on Bruce, looking down at something in his hands below frame. He brings up a small black container, and we rack focus to the row of similar containers in the foreground, where Bruce adds it to the line. The canisters display “Pb”, the symbol for lead, subtly setting up Batman’s use of these lead smoke grenades against Superman.

“Again, the grenade has got lead. I don’t spell it out, but it’s foreshadowed in the making of the thing. People have always said, ‘Why can’t he see him?’ Well, there’s lead in the grenade. ‘Well, how do you know there’s lead in it?’ I’m like, well, if you look, there’s lead in it.”

Zack Snyder, Full Circle, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice commentary, 29 April 2023

Deleted Footage

“It seems so obvious the way Superman would not see him was if the lead cloud hides him, but good work finding the solid proof. I think it’s in my storyboards. I am going to look. Yes, it’s in the info on the file he took. I shot a longer bit with Bruce working on how or why lead, but the simple grenade seemed more elegant.”

Zack Snyder, Vero, March 2018

Now we begin concluding the montage. Return to the shoulder shot of Bruce pulling the tyre. Waist-level cowboy shot as he tosses the rope and yells, indicating his muscles have reached their absolute limits and his body is on fire.

Medium shot on Bruce wearing black goggles to shield his eyes from the bright beam. He presses something on the control panel below frame. Return to the barrel of the laser as the beam cuts out, leaving smoke and red hot metal, concluding the sculpting of the Kryptonite.

Low-angle cowboy shot of Bruce in the gym with the massive weights over his shoulders. He drops them, banging on the ground. Ground-level shot to see the heavy object churn up dust and roll away.

Shot of Bruce from behind his head, lying back on a bench with two dumbbells in his hands. He drops them with another grunt, clanging on the floor. Ground-level shot to see them land.

Knee-level shot of the chains and weights falling from Bruce’s legs onto the floor.

Wide shot of Bruce approaching down the Batmobile causeway from the laser, goggles in his hand. We descend left to a low-angle shot of Bruce with the smoking Kryptonite in the foreground, now sculpted into a crude arrowhead shape.

Fade out into a string pattern to terminate the intensity of the montage.

Wide shot of Bruce at the Bat-computer, head in his arms. He leans back in the chair, sighing in exhaustion after all his preparation. He reaches to the desk and grabs the mouse.

Close-up on the screen, displaying a column of folders. He opens the folder simply titled “META_HUMAN”.

As it opens, cut to full-screen to reveal several icons identifiably representing Wonder Woman, Cyborg, The Flash, and Aquaman. Each symbol is presumably based on aspects of their physical appearance. The titles of each subject represent each hero with abbreviated references to their aliases, either as Easter eggs or Lex’s direct references to aspects of their characters.

1920//213_meta_human_alpha_WW

1920//213_meta_human_alpha_CY

1920//213_meta_human_alpha_FL

1920//213_meta_human_alpha_AQ

Codex Theme returns here on a slow, deep brass, gaining volume with a rumble from the soundtrack.

Medium shot on Bruce, looking interested.

Return to the screen. He moves the cursor up towards the Wonder Woman folder.

Close-up on the folder as he selects it, revealing several new files and a blurry image titled “2012_Central_IMPORT.jpe” containing 1 item. Close-up on the mouse as Bruce clicks.

Return to the screen as the image opens, revealing a photo of Diana exiting a Parisian taxi. Her hair and makeup are different and her outfit is blue, but it is certainly her.

Return to Bruce, leaning forward, intrigued. Close-up on the photo, pushing in.

A beat of Diana Prince Motif again associates Diana with her mysterious tone.

Return to the close-up on the mouse. He moves it around. Close-up on a new folder titled “SURVEILLENCE_MBANK_0188374.MP4” containing 1 item. Bruce opens it. Full-screen video footage of Diana, in a different outfit, entering a bank to acquire some cash from an ATM. It is marked 22 Juin (French for June) 2015, 10:13AM.

Return to Bruce, entering a medium a close-up as he leans in further.

Return to the video, closer now, as Diana looks around before looking up at the camera. Facial recognition software activates, scanning her face. The info box that appears reveals the location is Rue Des Saints, Paris, France. Full-screen again as she leaves.

Codex Theme ends with another, higher beat of Diana Prince Motif.

Return to Bruce, looking especially intrigued. Close-up on the screen again. There are four other folders with the following file paths and details…

L/META_HUM/WW_01/_ARCH

L/META_HUM/WW_01/BELGIUM

L/META_HUM/WW_01/ASSOCIATES

L/META_HUM/WW_01/VIDEO_ASSETS

But he scrolls down to another blurred image titled, “BELGIUM, NOVEMBER 1918”. Close-up on the mouse again as he clicks.

The rolling cello and percussion rhythm of Wonder Woman Theme is introduced for the first time, building anticipation for the contents of this next photo.

Return to the image briefly before cutting to full-screen again, opening the image to reveal Diana, young as ever, in an aged photo from World War One, surrounded by soldiers having their photo taken with her.

The rolling percussion/cello rhythm intensifies dramatically on this supernatural discovery.

Behind the Scene

The soldier in the right background beside the tank is Zack Snyder, making a cameo.

Return to Bruce. He leans back, looking shocked by the discovery of Diana’s immortality.

Close-up on the haunting photo of Diana, pushing in.

Wonder Woman Theme hits a fierce, screaming, high energy theme in ⅞ time signature on electric cello, often mistaken for electric guitar, paired with the rolling cello/percussion rhythm underneath. This is Wonder Woman’s first ever theme song on film.

Return to Bruce, pushing in to emphasise his taking in this unexpected revelation.

SCENE OVERVIEW

At the Batcave, Bruce performs a vigorous workout, prepares weapons and gadgets for his fight with Superman, and crafts his Kryptonite spear, building anticipation for the clash between the two and displaying his super-human devotion to his work. Afterwards, he takes the opportunity to go through Lex’s decrypted files further, locating a folder on meta-humans to be further explored later, and learns that Diana Prince is immortal, setting up his Email exchange with her.

SCENE ANALYSIS

The brutal intensity of this scene demonstrates how hardcore Bruce is about maintaining his beyond peak physical condition. Furthermore, he does not know exactly what effect the Kryptonite will have on Superman, so being ready for an intense fight is vital. Note that Alfred is absent from the scene, having not appeared in the Batcave since his argument with Bruce. He is evidently not contributing in any way to Bruce’s bloodthirsty crusade.

The full montage is exactly 1m2s long.

According to Snyder on Vero, Batman creating a spear was in reference to the spear that impaled Christ to make sure he was dead after being crucified, providing Christ on the Cross Between the Two Thieves (1619-1620) by Peter Paul Rubens. The imagery of the two thieves can also be seen in the Trinity depictions in the film and possibly the bunker sequence during the Knightmare. Also, the use of a spear is possibly another reference to Moby Dick, where Ahab wielded a spear in an attempt to kill the titular whale that he hated. In preparation for killing Superman, Batman has embraced Ahab’s role as the obsessed, driven hunter.

“The spear, of course, is like the spear that pierced the side of Christ. It’s a very primitive weapon, this notion that he would have to make a weapon that you thrust physically into your enemy is kind of crazy. He could have made a bullet or some kind of projectile out of it but the spear, I felt, was a much more physical manifestation of him having to kill Superman.”

Zack Snyder, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Watch Party, 29 March 2020

The first music track in this scene is Preparation Montage. It primarily serves to convey Bruce’s rage and determination in association with his intense preparation for the battle ahead using an angry Bruce Wayne Motif while tying into the Kryptonite’s presence with the Codex Theme. The Diana Prince Motif is obviously to identify Diana as the woman in the picture and video. This track is not on any commercially-available version of the score.

The second music track in this scene is Photograph. It does little more than identify Wonder Woman as an established character in the DCEU beyond her double identity as Diana Prince, officially introducing us to the superhero. This is also the first time Wonder Woman has been represented in any live-action film score. This track is not on any commercially-available version of the score.

BEHIND THE SCENE

The Batcave was constructed across two soundstages at the late Michigan Motion Picture Studios along Centerpoint Parkway, Pontiac, Michigan. Production designer Patrick Tatopoulos in the Art of the Film and Tech Manual described it as “oppressive” with how the roof of the cave is very low, as though you “barely have the space to live in there.” The blocky, minimalistic, concrete aesthetic of the Glass House above is reflected in the design, which is arguably a reflection of Bruce’s anti-social attitude. The intention with the architecture was to make everything suspended from above to be “reminiscent of the concept of a bat,” and work tables in the lab are attached to a gantry system on the ceiling for moving them around. You can see the official Batcave behind-the-scenes featurette on YouTube. Warner Brothers and Google Maps collaborated with Territory Studio to create a 360-degree virtual tour of the Batcave set which is sadly no longer available, but you can still see videos of the tour. The sequences here were shot in June or July 2014 when the crew were filming in Pontiac. Graphic designer Ryan Uhrich, who worked on the film, created a 3D model of the laser.

“We wanted [the laser] to look like a traditional atom-buster, like the huge ones that are there in Europe, underground. They look a bit like a jet engine. We started making it fairly small, and it was supposed to be upstairs where Alfred works. But then we decided to put it downstairs in the Batcave, and realised it would look pretty diminutive in that space. So we scaled it up and it became a much larger prop, something that Bruce could really interact with.”

Doug Harlocker, Tech Manual, p74

“Lewis Doty and I spit-balled it and 3D modelled it and then showed it to Zack. Zack made some modifications and we reverse-engineered and built it. We added aluminium, carbon fibre, and metallics. We scorched it around where the laser was and we added a whole lot of lights, and we put it on dimmers so that when we switched on the laser it could start it up in phases. We see the initial start up and then as the power increases we can keep hitting switches and things will grow and grow. I like making big props. This is impossible to miss — it’s a beast!”

Doug Harlocker, Tech Manual, p75

The location and shooting date of Bruce’s gym is unknown. It was most likely constructed on a soundstage alongside the Batcave.

“You guys like fun facts, so for this workout sequence montage we used a minimal crew on a Saturday. My team had already lit the set so Zack could do what he does best: grab the camera himself and find the shots instinctively and unrehearsed.”

Larry Fong, Twitter, 29 November 2025

The photograph of Diana in the red dress was taken outside the Willits apartment complex, 111 Willits Street, Birmingham, Michigan, on 16 May 2014. Gal Gadot repeatedly left the building to enter her car so the right photo could be taken. Locals also took many photos of the shoot, and the Seeds Marketing and Design company situated in the building also posted about it on their Instagram. Set photographer Clay Enos tweeted this photo of Zack Snyder that day on a motorbike at the nearby crossroads of Southfield and West Maple.

WONDER WOMAN PHOTO

“This was kind of the opposite [of Breaking Bad] because we had the script and it wasn’t in the script. As we started then we worked on our script, I think we were in the middle of shooting and we started working on the outline for the next movie and where they go, and Zack said, ‘Oh my god, let’s add this moment that is gonna pay off down the road, and we’ll find out more information.’”

Deborah Snyder, Collider, 28 March 2016

Before Patty Jenkins, Zack Snyder had a “placeholder” photo taken by photographer Stephen Berkman, whom Snyder was classmates with in film school, along with the film’s director of photography Larry Fong and additional second unit director Clay Staub. The photo pitched the premise of Wonder Woman’s standalone movie, but set during the Crimean War — one of the earliest wars in which photography was employed — to demonstrate the breadth of Diana’s immortality. The American Civil War was also considered. The photo was likely taken around 18 October 2014 when director of photography Larry Fong reposted this photo of Berkman’s camera from the (now privated) Cruel and Unusual Films Instagram account. Zack Snyder posted photos of the photograph and the set [1/2/3].

The premise involved Wonder Woman on a quest to hunt down Ares, visiting “hot spots” of war around the world, wherein her divine powers would awe diverse warriors from each battlefield who would join her quest to find and defeat the God of War, building a growing team of loyal warriors honoured to fight by the side of this goddess. Diana would’ve been weary after her long quest, jaded and hardened by endless battle, but especially the loss of lovers over the years who would either die in combat or grow old and wither. Eventually, she would meet Steve Trevor, who would help Diana rediscover her faith in love and humanity. Florence Nightingale made an appearance before Diana took part in the ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade. At one point, the DC supervillain Kalibak (the son of Darkseid) made an appearance in a post-credits scene. Stuntwoman Samantha Win posted a fight pre-visualisation of a fight scene likely for this hypothetical film, given she describes it as “made prior to production in the creative stages of decisions far above me.”

“We’ve kind of done that a little bit with all the films as we’re developing them and as the scripts come, because it is this connected universe. For instance, the Wonder Woman daguerreotype photograph where we see her for the first time, we shot that and then we actually reshot it. We just shot it and then when they were working on the script [for Wonder Woman] we were like, ‘Wow, what if we put in the script the actual taking of the photograph?’ But it’s totally different people because we shot it on our set, so when Patty [Jenkins] was doing camera tests, we were back and forth because we were prepping that movie and editing and starting Justice League. On one of the days we just got the group together, brought over — because it’s shot on these beautiful glass plates — we brought Steven over, who is a friend of Zack’s from Arts Centre, he’s a professor over there and he shoots this beautiful glass plate photography, and we shot it with all the cast. So sometimes it just kind of happens and you kind of change gears, and you realize that there might be an opportunity as you’re working on your process.”

Deborah Snyder, Collider, 28 March 2016

“Patty was awesome because, Patty, she had to take my photo and put it in her movie, and we had to work out how that happened. So, we had a placeholder photo that Steve Berkman — who is a teacher at this school, and who shot both photos — took, because even before we had a script for Wonder Woman, we weren’t sure when that movie was going to happen and how it was going to happen, so just based on our story, we had taken a picture of Wonder Woman in an ancient war with a team of soldiers very similar to the one that ended up in her movie. Now, there was an actual story built around the one that she has in her movie. That was like the best case scenario.”

Zack Snyder, Zack Snyder: The Director’s Cuts, 24 March 2019

“The image that we shot from the Wonder Woman movie, there’s the team. We actually shot for the movie before we did this [photo] and inserted it into the film. I had shot a placeholder because, when we shot BvS, we hadn’t really finished the concept for Wonder Woman yet, but the idea that Batman was looking at an early photographic image — not a painting, but a photograph — to prove that it’s the same person and that the photograph was a hundred years old to show that she hadn’t aged, that notion was in the film before we made the Wonder Woman movie. That was a way to start with the concept of the Wonder Woman film as a concept, that she had a team of people that she was going after Ares with.

So we had shot in Detroit. Steve Berkman, who shot the image of Wonder Woman from World War I, we had shot that previous with an image from the Crimean War because it was one of the early conflicts where photography was used, and I really wanted to get the longest stretch possible. I think we originally even talked about it being the [American] Civil War as a possibility in our early conversations, like, what would really show the distance? And that idea was really fun to play around with, so we shot another one of those images in Detroit and I have it somewhere, but it exists, and then we reshot it, but I had Gal in the original photo, but it was the Crimean War, so it was a very different kind of look.”

Zack Snyder, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Watch Party, 29 March 2020

“Wonder Woman 1854 — This amazing image shot by Stephen Berkman of an else-world, war weary Diana, who had chased Ares across the battlefields of the world and had yet to meet Steve [Trevor], who would help her restore her faith in mankind and love itself.”

Zack Snyder, Twitter, 5 January 2021

“The idea of it was that, in those days, because Diana was searching for the God of War, searching for Ares around the world, and in her quest to find him, she ended up going to all the hotspots where all these conflicts are in the world, and in those conflicts looking for Ares, she would come across some amazing warrior on the battlefield, that she would say, ‘Hey, I’m looking for this God of War. I need a team to help me,’ and that was the basic concept behind who all those guys were, and that they saw her on the battlefield and she was so insanely powerful that, in service of this goddess who is even more powerful than the service of my country, whatever I’m doing, whatever political war I’m in, this goddess asking me to join her is quite an honour, so that’s why, when we see her in Crimea, she’s ended up with those cats that are with her from her journey around the world.”

Zack Snyder, Full Circle, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice commentary, 29 April 2023

“The idea of that was an early riff we were doing: once Wonder Woman left the island in search of Ares, what happened to her in her different incarnations? My idea for it was that she would travel around the world looking for Ares and she would go to every place where there was conflict.

On those battlefields she found these lovers, warriors, and they would age out because she is immortal. They would be her lover for ten years or they might die in battle, and it was probably sad for a lot of the guys because they would see her starting to be nice to the next young soldier and be like, ‘Oh, I’m being replaced.’ But all the guys that she had with her were those loyal warriors she found on the battlefields all over the world.”

Zack Snyder, Empire, 14 March 2024

“Leica Monochrom frame I shot alongside Stephen Berkman’s glass plate photography. This is the original Wonder Woman photograph made for Batman v Superman — the black-and-white image that here was the Crimean War later became the basis for the WWI version we recreated for Wonder Woman. This would have been the very first iteration of Diana’s history.”

Zack Snyder, Instagram, 5 December 2025

“We did an initial draft that took place in the Crimean War and there was a great encounter between Diana and Florence Nightingale right before Diana participated in the Charge of the Light Brigade. That was a pretty cool moment. There was also a version of that script that ended with a post-credit sequence that included Kalibak, a great deep cut DC canon character which I always really liked.”

Jason Fuchs, Josh Horowitz, 15 December 2025

Berkman also took the World War I photo used for the final film. Due to time constraints in releasing the film on schedule, the photo was taken on the set of the Belgian village Veld for Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman (2017), half-constructed at Warner Bros Studios Leavesden, Leavesden Green, United Kingdom. This might help to explain the film’s lengthy delay. Zack Snyder, set photographer Clay Enos, and stunt coordinator Damon Caro got photos of themselves during this opportunity, and Snyder himself can be seen in the right background of the image beside the tank, but Enos and Caro are just out of frame. Snyder [1/2/3/4/5] and Enos [1/2] both posted photos to Vero from the day of the photoshoot, and behind-the-scenes footage exists. When filming began on Jenkins’ movie, the contents of the BvS photo were painstakingly recreated to shoot the scene in which the photo is taken.

“That was the first thing that we shot, before we’d even shot a scene [for Wonder Woman] we shot that photograph. It meant that when we eventually got around to shooting the scene that the [photograph] is from, we had to really painstakingly recreate it. Because we [took the photo] against a half-built set, in a way sets were still being built at that point. So by the time we came around to filming that scene, probably around five months later, the sets were much more developed. So we had to find a way to recreate the exact same image after half a year had gone by.”

Ewen Bremner, Yahoo News, 12 June 2017

“…it was an exciting first day of shooting since it was a passing of the torch. The photo links Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice to Wonder Woman, so both Zack and Patty were present that day, working collaboratively. It was an exciting shared moment as we watched the DC world expanding and it was wonderful to be able to capture that moment in such a unique way. Photographer Stephen Berkman must have shot twenty glass plates before he, Zack, and Patty all felt they had the winning photo, as shooting a daguerreotype is art wrapped in a science experiment.”

Deborah Snyder, Wonder Woman: The Art and Making of The Film

“We’ve kind of done that a little bit with all the films as we’re developing them and as the scripts come, because it is this connected universe. For instance, the Wonder Woman daguerreotype photograph where we see her for the first time, we shot that and then we actually reshot it. We just shot it and then when they were working on the script [for Wonder Woman] we were like, ‘Wow what if we put in the script the actual taking of the photograph?’ But it’s totally different people because we shot it on our set, so when Patty was doing camera tests, we were back and forth because we were prepping that movie and editing and starting Justice League. On one of the days we just got the group together, brought over — because it’s shot on these beautiful glass plates — we brought Steven over, who is a friend of Zack’s from Arts Centre, he’s a professor over there and he shoots this beautiful glass plate photography, and we shot it with all the cast. So sometimes it just kind of happens and you kind of change gears, and you realize that there might be an opportunity as you’re working on your process.”

Deborah Snyder, Collider, 28 March 2016