Zack Snyder Says Wonder Woman is 'Gateway Drug' to Justice League in 'Batman v. Superman'

Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice hits theaters in 2016, and fans know Wonder Woman will have a relatively significant role in the film. But director Zack Snyder said in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly that she actually plays a more important role than one might have thought.

"She plays a super-important part," Snyder said. "In a lot of ways, she’s the gateway drug to 
the rest of the 
Justice League."

Snyder had actress Gal Gadot read a scene from Pulp Fiction for her audition, but she had no idea that she was reading for the role of Wonder Woman.

"I knew [the role] was big and it was for one of the franchises. He said, ‘Well, I don’t know how big she is in Israel…’ and my jaw just dropped," she said. "There are so many expectations for this character, it’s impossible not to
 be a little nervous about it."

But once she got rolling, Gadot loved the work she was doing. "I love doing the swordplay stuff. It’s another skill to add to my collection," she said. But what about the iconic lasso? "I’m still 
working on that," she added.

Gadot's co-star, Ben Affleck, joins the likes of Christian Bale and Michael Keaton on a list of many actors to play Batman, and in his mind, that's just fine. “Batman is basically the American version of Hamlet,” he told EW. “We accept that he’s played by actors with different interpretations.”

So where do we meet Affleck's interpretation of Batman in the movie? “He’s at the end of his run and maybe the end of his life. There’s this sort of world-weariness to it," he said.

The choice of Affleck ruffled many fans' feathers at first, but director Zack Snyder actually zeroed in on something key when he chose the actor. “I liked the fact that Ben was 
6’ 4” and taller 
than Henry Cavill,” Snyder said. “I wanted Superman to 
have to feel like 
he was looking up to Batman despite being so much stronger.”

Of course, Affleck had an extremely ill-fated turn as Matt Murdock in Daredevil more than 10 years ago, a fact he has since acknowledged. “Daredevil didn’t work, at all. If I wanted to go viral I would be less polite,” he said. “That was before people realized you could make these movies and make them well. There was a cynical sense of ‘Put a red leather outfit on a guy, have him run around, hunt some bad guys, and cash the check.’”

But nowadays, Marvel and DC have shown that comic book movies can be quality and still produce hundreds of millions of dollars. “They really learned how to make this stuff work,” Affleck said. “Good is the new bad.”

Check out all six photos posted by EW here.

What do you think of Snyder and Gadot's remarks? Let us know in the comments section.