Sorry, Lois Lane — real-life media stars have descended upon “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” to steal your thunder with their own fictional reporting.
Moviegoers to Friday’s superhero showdown from director Zack Snyder will inevitably take note of the journalism personalities broadcasting on the shenanigans in fictional cities Gotham and Metropolis.
Anderson Cooper, Nancy Grace, Charlie Rose, Soledad O’Brien, Dana Bash, retired blogger Andrew Sullivan, Vice Media regular Vikram Gandhi and TV host Neil deGrasse Tyson all make meaningful appearances throughout the film.
Unsurprisingly, Warner Bros. chose several personalities from within the Time Warner family. Cooper and Bash appear on family property CNN. Grace hosts an eponymous nightly show on HLN. O’Brien recently worked at the now-defunct TW property Al Jazeera America.
O’Brien, a contributor to cable and network news alike, shares a big courtroom scene with Jesse Eisenberg, one she called “extremely stressful.”
“I know I’m just playing myself, but it’s not easy to hit your mark and not fumble your lines!” O’Brien told TheWrap. “I find actual live shots much easier than ones where I’m acting,” she admitted.
For her foray into scripted content, O’Brien said she was impressed by the character work the actors accomplished in their live scenes.
“We ad-libbed a lot of interviews … that part was easy for me and the actors seemed to like it for character development. The director [and writers] were also very interested in how an interview would go if we were doing it in real life,” O’Brien added.
Grace was approached by producers to appear in true Grace fashion — questioning the moral fabric of Superman, and assessing the benefits and threats he poses to the American people.
“I jumped at the opportunity to be part of an epic show-down between two awesome heroes my children love,” she told TheWrap. “I only wish I was wearing a cape, too.”
DeGrasse Tyson appears on a “View”-like panel discussing the ramifications of the alien Superman (Henry Cavill) living among humans. And, interestingly enough, Holly Hunter‘s Democratic senator appears for a sit-down on the ethics of Superman with Charlie Rose for PBS. We take that to mean there are no hard feelings between the broadcaster and Ben Affleck.
The anchor who gets to flex the most superhero muscle, however, is Cooper. Appearing behind his own CNN desk, he has the privilege of narrating the long-promised battle between Batman and Superman as it unfolds live.
He also gets his “King Kong” moment, revealing the first glimpses of Doomsday scaling tall skyscrapers, as trailers for the film revealed he would only weeks ago.
Cooper and deGrasse Tyson were not available for comment on their roles — they were probably too busy covering other superhero feuds.