With Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy and this summer’s Man of Steel, composer Hans Zimmer has now had the chance to write music for arguably the two most popular comics characters in the world: Batman and Superman. Now that Zack Snyder has decided to bring a new Batman into the fold for the Man of Steel follow-up, Zimmer is faced with the decision of whether to revisit the Dark Knight or step aside and let someone else tackle the character.

Steve recently visited Zimmer in his studio and during the course of their extended conversation, the composer talked about whether he would be willing to return to score the Man of Steel follow-up and how his work with Nolan affects his decision. Zimmer also chimed in with his thoughts on the casting of Ben Affleck as Batman in Snyder’s film. Hit the jump for much more.

Speaking with Steve, Zimmer said that he hasn’t made a final decision on whether to score Batman vs. Superman just yet:

“It’s creating a bit of a problem in my head right now. Quite honestly, I’ve gotta sit down with Zack and have a chat with him about what he’s trying to do because what I don’t want to do is go back to that well. It’s a different Batman; Christian Bale and what I did with Chris, that needs to have its autonomous life. I don’t want to go and now appropriate that and put that into the other Batman.”

That being said, Zimmer did say that he enjoys working with Snyder:

“Of course I can see myself doing it, first of all because I love working with Zack. I think you can tell from that score we had a lot of fun, and I think it was inventive. Once I got over the whole ‘Oh my God I’m not as good as John Williams’ thing which, I’m different! And it’s different times.”

Speaking of which, Zimmer addressed some of the criticisms of his Man of Steel score saying that it lacked the fanfare of Williams’ work:

“I am sensitive to criticisms, as is everybody else. Somebody saying, ‘Oh well it wasn’t like the John Williams thing because it didn’t start off as the big fanfare.’ Our movie starts differently! There’s no room for fanfare, you can’t have a fanfare with the way we reveal this planet and reveal the birth of this child.”

With regards to Ben Affleck playing the new Batman, Zimmer is optimistic:

“He’ll be a really good Batman. It’s really quite simple, the man isn’t a fool and he’s not gonna set himself up for a fall. He’s a great filmmaker in his own right, he really is… I think he’s become a much more astute actor and I think he’ll make a great Batman, I think he knows exactly what he’s doing. So do I think it’s a good idea? Yes, I think it’s a good idea. I think he’s great casting.”

The composer was surprised at the level of vitriol thrown Affleck’s way when the actor was first announced as the new Batman, but it reminded him of the response to Heath Ledger playing The Joker in The Dark Knight:

“I think [the response to Affleck’s casting] was incredibly vicious. I think the way he got attacked was unbelievable. But you know something, when Chris cast Heath Ledger as The Joker maybe we weren’t quite as big yet and maybe it wasn’t quite as visible, but there was a lot of that going on as well, that it was a complete miscasting and ‘only Jack Nicholson can play The Joker.’”

Watch the portion of Steve’s interview with Zimmer below, which also includes the composer’s thoughts on the importance of privacy in filmmaking. Look for more from the full interview in the coming days.

If you missed Zimmer discussing his work in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, click here.