Reports that the Batmobile had been stolen from the Detroit set of Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice were greatly exaggerated, but that didn’t stop director Zack Snyder from having a little fun with the widely circulated rumor.
After Bleeding Cool initially reported that one of the working versions of the recently revealed Batmobile had gone missing from the set of the film, various outlets — including the local CBS affiliate — picked up on the unconfirmed story, only to have it subsequently debunked by Detroit police spokesman Sgt. Michael Woody in an interview with The Detroit Free Press. Still, the rumor had gained enough momentum by that point that Snyder saw fit to address it — if only to use it as the theme for the latest installment of his ongoing photo mash-up battle with Star Wars: Episode VII studio Bad Robot.
The latest photo, posted to Twitter over the weekend, features a Star Wars stormtrooper being arrested by the Gotham City Police Department while the Batmobile is parked nearby. Snyder captioned the photo “Case closed.”
The photo is the third in a series of images posted by Snyder and Bad Robot that combine Star Wars elements with Warner Brothers’ DC Comics characters. The back-and-forth began back in July when Snyder posted a photo of Man Of Steel star Henry Cavill dressed like a Jedi with the caption “#SuperJedi.” Bad Robot responded a few weeks later with an image of Star Wars android C3PO poised on the ledge of a tall tower, looking out over the city a la Batman’s classic pose. The image was caption “THE C3PED CRUSADER.” (You can see both images below.)
Now, Snyder has volleyed the supremely geeky ball back to Bad Robot’s side of the digital court with an image that manages to both address the stolen Batmobile rumors and continue the franchise mash-up that’s becoming increasingly entertaining.
Well played, Mr. Snyder.