Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice co-writer Chris Terrio has revealed the real-world inspiration for one of Lois Lane’s more controversial lines in the film.
“There’s a line at the beginning of the film where a warlord says to Lois Lane, ‘They didn’t tell me the interview was with a lady.’ And Lois replies, ‘I’m not a lady, I’m a journalist,'” Terrio explained to Vanity Fair. “So one reviewer held up this line as proof positive of my stupidity and my inability to write Lois, or to write at all.”
“Well, the character of Lois in the movie was inspired by the journalist Marie Colvin, who was of course killed in Syria,” Terrio continued. “She was one of the most intrepid journalists who ever lived, in my opinion. And there’s a story in Vanity Fair, ‘Marie Colvin’s Private War’ [by Marie Brenner], and the line that Lois says is almost exactly the line that was in that article, where a Chechen warlord said he wouldn’t shake her hand because she was a woman. Marie Colvin replied, ‘There is no woman in this room, only a journalist.’ So that line was my tribute to her. But then in the pile-on, a line like that is held as proof positive that I don’t understand either women or journalists or human beings, and that I’m a shitty writer.”
Click the button below to start this article in quick view.
In addition to co-writing Batman v Superman, Terrio wrote the screenplay for Zack Snyder’s Justice League, co-wrote Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and won an Oscar for writing 2012’s Argo, a dramatic thriller about the CIA’s secret operation to rescue six U.S. citizens during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis. During his interview with Vanity Fair, Terrio expressed his frustrations with the theatrical cut of Batman v Superman, saying it removed “30 minutes that give the characters motivation for the climax.” He also admitted he hates the title, explaining, “The intention of the film was to do something interesting and dark and complex, not quite as Las Vegas, bust ’em up, WWE match as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.”
As for Justice League, Terrio said he was so frustrated after watching Joss Whedon’s theatrical cut that he tried to get his writing credit removed. Although it was too late in the process for him to do that, Terrio feels it was probably for the best, saying, “I think it would have created a whole wave of negative publicity that I think would’ve made the situation even worse for the actors, and for all the craftspeople who had worked on it, for all kinds of people. But I’m awfully happy that Zack Snyder’s cut of Justice League is the one that is higher on my IMDb page.”
Source: Vanity Fair
About The Author