3 Ways That Would Have Made Batman v Superman Better

The 37th Golden Raspberry Awards, or Razzies, announced its nominations for they what they felt was the worst in film over the past year and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice racked up eight nominations.

While the movie did have its flaws(a hammy performance by Jesse Eisenberg, the whole "Martha" thing), I actually thought the movie was decent and had some strong points(Jeremy Irons' performance, the Batman warehouse fight scene, and Wonder Woman's entrance in the climatic battle).

And for those who hated the film when you saw in theaters, I recommend watching the Ultimate Edition, which is a half-hour longer than the theatrical version and fills up some plot holes as it gives depth to Lex Luthor's plot to put the Caped Crusader and Man of Steel against each other as well as giving Henry Cavill more screen time.

However, like I said, the movie had its flaws, and I think it could have worked better if one of these three solutions that I am going to present would have been applied:

Make it more Superman Centric

When Man of Steel was released in 2013, many fans thought Henry Cavill's Superman was going to be the central character in the DC Universe.

But in Dawn of Justice, Cavill was kicked to the curb as he had only 43 lines of dialogue in the theatrical version of the film.

It's a shame because I think Cavill has done a good job as the Man of Steel and felt the movie was better when Superman was the focus and how in the film, characters debated whether or not the world should trust the Kryptonian.

What director Zach Snyder and the writers could have done is essentially made the movie Man of Steel 2 but still have Batman in the film as a supporting character.

Basically, they could have had Superman be trying to do what he does(save the world), but have Batman as a mysterious figure who is shadowing the Man of Steel, leading Clark Kent to ask himself "Who is this Batman and what his problem with me?"

Then, we could have seen more of Cavill as Clark Kent as he investigates the Dark Knight's past or have Batman came out of retirement like in the graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns to fight Superman.

Also by making the movie more Superman-centric, it could have allowed for us to see more of Lex Luthor pulling the strings of his plan or have him recruit the Batman out of retirement and convince him he needs to destroy Superman.
Another way would have been not to include Batman at all, but still have Wonder Woman show up and have Superman have the "Knightmare" where he sees a desolate Earth, leading him to believe him a greater threat is out there and that the Justice League needs to be formed.
By doing this, they could save Batman for Justice League as Superman tries to recruit Batman out of retirement to join the Justice League.

Given Batman a movie before hand

After all the backlash of his casting, I thought Ben Affleck did a good job as Batman, who in this incarnation of the Dark Knight character has become disillusioned after fighting criminals for 20 years and no longer lives up to his code of not killing people.

According to some accounts, he is responsible for the death of 21 criminals in Batman v Superman, but to quote Arnold Schwarznegger in True Lies "Yes, but they were bad".

But how did the Batman get to this point where he is so cynical and has no problem with his actions that kill people? 

We didn't have to worry about Wonder Woman's backstory because we knew going into Dawn of Justice that there was going to be a movie detailing her past(which comes out this June), but with Batman, some fans were of kind of saying to themselves "What is Batman's deal?"

The only glimpse to see why Batman is the way he is in Dawn of Justice is his talk to Alfred about needing to destroy Superman and a image on a statue of Robin, which leads us to assume that the Boy Wonder was killed at some point during Batman's 20 years of crime-fighting.
A solo Batman movie released before Dawn of Justice, could have better explained how Batman got to be so ruthless and why he does not live up to his moral code of not killing anyone anymore.

Perhaps adopting the famous storylines from the comics like The Killing Joke where the Joker paralyzes Batgirl with a gunshot and A Death in The Family where Robin is killed by a bomb set up by the Joker, could have been used and actually made use of Jared Leto's Joker, who was barely in the DC Universe's third film Suicide Squad, which by the way is way more incoherent that Dawn of Justice.

And you could have the scene where Bruce Wayne goes into Metropolis and looks at Superman in the sky as the final scene of the movie, setting up the cliff-hanger where you know Batman and Superman are going to go at it in the next movie.

Split it into two movies

There are reports that there is a four-hour cut of the movie, which could have been easily split into two 2-hour movies.

They did this with the final movies of the Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and Twilight series, so why not with Batman v Superman?

Therefore, you could have given more time to flesh out the stories of all the main characters(Batman, Superman, Lex Luthor)

So if Snyder and Warner Brothers wanted to go with Batman v Superman as the second film of the DC Universe and not have a Batman movie before Dawn of Justice, we could have had flashbacks of the Dark Knight, like they did with Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad to show us how he got where he is at the time of Dawn of Justice rather than have him just look at the sky and see Superman fighting Zod after his building collapsed during their fight in Metropolis.

Plus, we could have possibly seen more of Lex Luthor plotting his master plan and more of Clark Kent's investigation of Batman's past, which could have included how he found out Bruce Wayne's mother's name was Martha, which would have allowed to have the whole "Martha" thing to work better.

Could have any of these three possibilities made Batman v Superman work better? Let me know what you think