8 Mistakes From Previous Versus Movies That Batman V Superman Should Avoid
5. Dont Remind The Audience How Much Better The Older Films Were By Casting A Series Star In A New Role
Offending Vs Movies: House of Frankenstein, Alien Vs Predator Happily, this seems like one we can rule out, but we might not have been so lucky. It came to light recently that director Zack Snyder had at one point contemplated casting Christian Bale in an unspecified supporting role: i.e., not as Batman again. We can surely all be grateful this didnt come to pass, as such a pointed nod to the most recent Batman movies would have taken the audience out of the film completely, keeping it from standing on its own feet. Earlier vs movies have not been so smart. Way back in 1944, Universal brought all three of their biggest monsters Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolf Man together for the first time in House of Frankenstein. However, whilst original Wolf Man Lon Chaney Jr remained, Dracula and the Frankenstein monster were now played by the younger (and frankly lesser) actors John Carradine and Glenn Strange. The main problem is, someone thought it would be a good idea to cast original Frankenstein actor Boris Karloff in an elder role as a mad scientist. Not only was the material below Karloff (the same reason he abandoned the series after 1939s subpar Son of Frankenstein), but his presence also brought into focus how much the new interpretation of the character paled in comparison to the original James Whale films. A similar error was made by Paul WS Andersons Alien Vs Predator in 2004, which aimed for some fan-pleasing casting and to raise some what if? questions by casting Lance Henriksen, previously seen as the android Bishop in James Camerons seminal Aliens, in a new role as billionaire Charles Weyland, founder of the Weyland Yutani corporation. There may have been a certain internal logic with the implication that Weyland was the physical template for Bishop, but that clashed with the other role he played in Alien 3 and didn't really achieve anything beyond making the viewers more acutely aware of how much better Aliens was.
