8 Reasons Batman V Superman Is The Most Culturally Significant Movie Of 2016

Batman V Superman was a disappointment. There's no two ways about it. You may have found things to like about it personally, but on a macro level everything, from the critical reception to its box office reveals it as a major miss for Warner Bros.

Even me, someone who was vocally rather sceptical of the film pretty much from conception, was still let down by it. In my mind the DC Extended Universe couldn't sink below Man Of Steel, a film that so failed to live up to its massive hype in 2013, yet in the wake of Dawn Of Justice and the inexplicably just as bad Suicide Squad it's somehow positioned itself top of the pack, making me doubt my initial assessment. Batman V Superman is a film so bad I'm actually questioning whether the movie equivalent of a sledgehammer to a stack of Superman comics was good. Jesus H Allegory.

And yet in the months since its release something rather terrifying has crept up on me. In a year where Leo finally got his Oscar, Marvel paid off eight years of build-up and everybody lost their sh*t over a remake of Ghostbusters for some reason, Batman V Superman may be the most culturally significant movie of 2016. Sounds crazy? It's really not. Here's eight reasons why.

Even before Batman V Superman hit cinemas, there was a confirmed, R-rated extended cut of the film coming to home video. The early announcement and release of the Ultimate Edition alongside the standard theatrical cut on Blu-Ray is certainly a sign of uncertainty in the project's financially viability from Warner Bros., although that shouldn’t take away from the fact that it not only extended the discussion of the movie by a good few months, but also that it got people excited about a home release.

That’s a lot harder than it sounds. Yes, you can chuck out a few deleted scenes or a featurette about upcoming films in the franchise, but that’s an ancillary bonus feature and is hardly keeping the movie going. So while putting those cut thirty minutes back in may not have improved the film, it did ensure there was still excitable hype and extreme curiosity from a fanbase that would have otherwise dismissed the whole thing.

Don’t be surprised if DC are hurrying out a newer cut of Suicide Squad to see if they can repeat the trick for that dud too.