In the September issue, Empire sits down with the brains trust behind the new DC/Warner Bros. superpowered behemoth, Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice. It's the beginning of unrivalled coverage of a film that has an awful lot riding on it. The on-set stories, the genesis, the new casting and its place in the fast-developing DCverse are all tackled within, with director Zack Snyder, producers Deborah Snyder and Charles Roven, and its two key protagonists, Henry Cavill (the Man of Steel) and Ben Affleck (the Dark Knight), promising a muscular, dark-hewn epic. These three exclusive new shots from within the article's pages bear that out.
First up is Cavill's Supes, looking like, a) he's inside the burnt-out ruins of Wayne Manor, and b) he's not there to measure it out for new soft furnishing. Below is his adversary, for the majority of the movie at least, in Affleck's Batman. Note the almost medieval shape of the Bat armour, designed to level the playfield when he's exchanging blows with Kal-El. The Bat signal - a legacy from the Commissioner Gordon era - is now being used to lure in Superman for a mighty set-to.
Last but far from least, Empire boasts another look at Jesse Eisenberg's hip, RAM-brained superbad Lex Luthor. Suitably CEO-ish in bearing and Silicon Valley in garb, he's still lustrously maned - like Professor Xavier in X-Men, the hair gets its own arc in this franchise - and That ape-with-a-detonator T-shirt looks like more than a hint at the thoughts percolating inside his big brain.
Pick up the new issue of Empire- onsale on Thursday - for much more on the movie, and Snyder's route map to The Justice League. Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice is out on March 25, 2016.