Author Of Fake Dawn Of Justice Script Interviewed
By Steve Lam
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice will probably go down in history as one of the most rumor-filled film productions the world has ever seen. Most of this has to do with the our present communications technologies which allow any type of information to spread like wildfire. Well, one person took advantage of this and leaked a fake Dawn of Justice script to anyone with an ear. And this was all done for the purposes of a grand social experiment — to see how far fanboys will go with their virtual wars and bullying.
The news about the fake Dawn of Justice script has been making its rounds for the past week. Many of the rumors, including the ones involving four new antagonists, were revealed to be fake. The main party suspected for the deception was initially Warner Brothers and Zack Snyder’s production camp. They were mum about this and the next target became Kevin Smith who people speculated was hired by WB to create a fake script to throw off fans. Smith jumped to Twitter and denied the claim four days ago.
On July 10th, Twitter user Son of Arrogance, admitted to being the sole author of the fake script. He also revealed to be the original manufacturer of the rumor that WB hired Kevin Smith to write the script. Basically, the doled out information about the film and the leak about the revealed deception itself was the source of one person. The Bible of Zack Snyder was able to interview Son of Arrogance and his reasonings behind the ruse.
The deception was conceived during Comic-Con 2013 when Son of Arrogance surfed the comments section of IGN. He was appalled by the anger and negativity stemming from just the announcement of Batman’s involvement in the Man of Steel sequel:
"I am a regular commentator on IGN and when the movie was announced there was this uproar of negativity. People were pissed about the casting, the director, the writer etc etc. And it was completely irrational. There was no sense to it. Just a bunch of people angry over what was ultimately nothing. There is no basis for anger in my opinion unless there is something tangible. Which there wasn’t just rumors. Coming from sites that couldn’t possibly know anything that early in the game. … It was a sort of internet tribalism that intrigued me. … So I decided to exploit that."
Son of Arrogance wrote the script in less than five days. In it, he strategically added fake information he had already leaked to various sites. The creation of the script was suggested by a director friend of his.
Originally, he had a hard time getting his information out. But what changed everything was the announcement of Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. In his script, he described Luthor as a reformed street thug who had a Metropolis skyline tattooed across his chest. This was quickly picked up by Latino Review in early February and the page has now been taken down.
When Kevin Smith blatantly denied his involvement, the fanboy community directed their rage at Son of Arrogance. The Bible of Zack Snyder has a screenshot of an exchange Son of Arrogance had with Umberto “El Mayimbe” Gonzalez, writer at Latino Review.
His strategy for spreading false information was pretty simple — send a blanket email. All he needed was one small news site to publish it and it would eventually be everywhere. Even though the reveal of his deception was sooner than he had hoped, it still accomplished his goals of exposing the dark side of fanboy extremism:
"Oh it’s worse than I had imagined. I hadn’t planned on blowing the whistle until I saw just how much my fake script turned fanboys into rabid idiots. Everybody had their opinion. … It is a subculture and it has a very serious darkside. Cyber bullying is rampant in the world on online fanboys and girls and the world of scoops is cut throat."
Everything Son of Arrogance did also depended on timing. The whole plan had to be carried out before SDCC 2014. By that time, people would’ve obviously found out it was a fake due to WB revealing more about the movie.
In closing remarks, Son of Arrogance compared the usual Marvel vs. DC rhetoric as a “Geek version of the Yankees vs. the Red Sox.” Of course now, people want to know his universe preference and he answered that he is a DC fan. He later posted this comment about what he observed from his experiment:
"To the fans I’d like to show them that the majority of what they are arguing about online isn’t real. So when they call each other ‘f***’ or ‘b******’ they should realize that they are championing nothing but attractive lies and judging things without any real evidence. To the bloggers I say this: don’t exploit the ignorance of fanboys for clicks and have flame war baiting headlines that just seem to encourage that behavior. If [you’re] in the business of potentially damaging a filmmakers process before they even have the chance to present the finished product realize that there are people who will exploit you for that. … Simple the reason my script duped people was that it was earnest and I presented it as such. It was a slight of hand. The scripts being close to what was rumored blinded a lot of people to the obvious discrepancies."
There is one rumor that might not be false. By a strange coincidence, the actual story may also have the same idea as the fake script — the appearance of Doomsday. This is evidenced from the source not being from a script and a tweet by Son of Arrogance on July 10th:
"Doomsday might really be in Dawn of Justice?… Well great minds think alike I suppose."
I, for one, think that this was a very well thought-out hoax and one that certainly proves a point. I’m always asked whether I’m a loyalist for DC or Marvel. My answer back is that I don’t prefer one over the other because I’m a fan of the characters. But above all, I’m a fan of superheroes in general. When it was announced that Dawn of Justice will be opening on the same day as the planned Captain America 3, I didn’t care which movie would win at the box office. My biggest concern was how I was going to run back and forth between auditoriums to catch them both on their first showing.