‘Batman v Superman’ is another superhero sequel. It’s a clash of cultural icons. It’s about the politics of military intervention and terrorism. It’s inspired by W.H. Auden and Umberto Eco. It’s the highest-stakes movie produced by a Hollywood studio since James Cameron’s “Avatar.”

“Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” opening March 25, is all these things and more: a 2½-hour, $250 million collection of Hollywood contradictions that could rise above the din of comic book adaptations or sink under its own bloated weight.

On its face, the movie seems like the most cynical of exercises: How to follow up 2013’s “Man of Steel,” which received mixed critical reviews, mixed reactions from fans, and mixed results at the box office ($668 million being, by big-budget superhero standards, not all that impressive these days)?

The answer: Make the follow-up even bigger! Bring back Batman, last seen in Christopher Nolan’s 2012, trilogy-ending “The Dark Knight Rises.” Cast Ben Affleck as the caped crusader! Make them fight! But why just two superheroes? Let’s introduce Wonder Woman! And give brief glimpses of characters like Aquaman, Cyborg and Flash, who will soon get their own movies.

It’s not just a sequel and not just a superhero Battle Royal. It’s the launch of a new “cinematic universe,” Hollywood-speak for a series of interconnected movies in which characters coexist and stories interweave. Disney’s Marvel pioneered the concept to great success and now Warner Bros. has boldly announced 10 DC movies to be released over the next five years.

All of those films flow out of the plot and characters established in “Batman v Superman.” If any of them are going to work, and Warner’s multibillion-dollar plan is to succeed, this one has to be a hit.

“While each movie stands alone, they’re all part of one long arc of storytelling,” said producer Charles Roven.

No pressure, in other words.

“Batman v Superman” comes amid hints that audiences are tiring of traditional superhero films. The last two releases were August’s mega-flop “Fantastic Four” and last month’s surprise blockbuster “Deadpool,” which succeeded by sending up every convention of the genre.

In contrast to “Deadpool,” “Batman v Superman” is deadly serious, continuing a pattern set in “Batman Begins” of trying to ground DC movies in what Warner production chief Greg Silverman calls “the big emotions of the human experience.” “Fun” and “family-friendly” won’t be the first words most people use after seeing a film that’s more revenge tragedy than brainless slugfest.

Still, audience interest is strong two weeks ahead of the picture’s debut, with research indicating it will open to about $140 million— perhaps slightly above the minimum Warner needs to declare it a bona fide blockbuster.

When kicking off the equivalent of a five-year plan, one might expect the studio to keep a dictatorial grip on the creative process. But though it’s the industry’s biggest studio, Warner has also earned a reputation as the most accommodating to filmmakers.

It’s the studio that last year allowed George Miller to soar with “Mad Max: Fury Road” and the Wachowskis to crash and burn with “Jupiter Ascending.” It has been the home of “Man of Steel” director Zack Snyder for a decade, through hits like “300” and flops like “Sucker Punch.”

On “Batman v Superman,” Warner paired Mr. Snyder with Chris Terrio, the “brilliant, brilliant, complicated”—in the words of Mr. Roven—Oscar-winning writer of “Argo,” who did a major rewrite of the script (he shares credit with “Man of Steel” writer David Goyer).

Mr. Terrio is a former student of British literature and phenomenology who dropped out of a masters program at Cambridge University to study film. On his first big-budget movie, he cites as influences not just Frank Miller’s seminal comic-book miniseries “The Dark Knight Returns” (which features its own Batman-Superman battle) and Mr. Nolan’s trilogy of Batman films. He also invokes Italian semiotician Umberto Eco’s 1972 essay “The Myth of Superman” and the W.H. Auden poem “Musée des Beaux Arts,” which contrasts the quotidian details of normal people’s lives with the epic struggles of mythological figures.

“Given the scale, you would think the whole thing has a corporate stench, but the way we worked there was this quality of, ‘I can’t believe they’re letting us do this,’” Mr. Terrio said.

The screenwriter went to great lengths to establish the movie’s titular conflict as more than the traditional comic-book gimmick of two superheroes tricked by a villain.

“Batman v Superman’s” opening sequence replays the final moments of “Man of Steel,” a sky-high brawl between Superman and Kryptonian villain General Zod, from the perspective of a civilian on the ground: Bruce Wayne.

In the 2012 movie, the scene was widely panned for portraying Superman as too violent and unconcerned about collateral damage. Mr. Affleck’s character agrees, drawing implicit comparisons to military drones and even 9-11 as he impotently watches the destruction of a Wayne Enterprises building in which his employees are maimed and die.

The likening of Henry Cavill’s Superman to a self-righteous military interventionist continues when he rescues Amy Adams’s Lois Lane from a reporting trip gone wrong in Africa. He is blamed for more collateral damage there.

Mr. Affleck’s Batman, on the other hand, makes Christian Bale’s version of the character in Mr. Nolan’s movies look like a pushover. A grizzled 40-something who seems on the verge of retirement, death or a mental breakdown, he literally brands enemies with the symbol of a bat and scares police as much as criminals. Clark Kent accuses him of a “reign of terror” in Gotham City.

“In superhero stories, Batman is Pluto, god of the underworld, and Superman is Apollo, god of the sky,” observed Mr. Terrio. “That began to be really interesting to me—that their conflict is not just due to manipulation, but their very existence.”

“Batman v Superman” is still an “event” movie, meaning it features plenty of over-the-top action scenes, shot in Mr. Snyder’s trademark hyper-stylized manner. It also features an uber-bad guy in the form of Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor, reimagined as a young tech billionaire who can’t stand being upstaged by superheroes: Think Mark Zuckerberg (whom Mr. Eisenberg played in “The Social Network”) with a psychopathic streak.

Israeli actress Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, meanwhile, is a centuries-old mythological heroine who is drawn into Batman and Superman’s conflict. Like every superhero here, she already exists in the world—so no origin story is needed.

“If you bring in a character in a kinetic way, then you accept the reality more easily,” said Mr. Terrio.

The same approach will largely be followed in future DC films, said Mr. Roven. August’s “Suicide Squad” features a team of veteran villains. While next year’s Wonder Woman flashes back to the superheroine’s early days, 2018’s “Flash” and “Aquaman” will continue the characters’ stories from team-up movie “Justice League,” which opens in November of 2017.

The end of “Batman v Superman” provides a natural starting point for “Justice League,” but the DC movies are not as tightly woven as those made by Marvel.

“The artists are all communicating with each other,” said Mr. Silverman. “I think if you have a studio dictating where you’re going to be in six or seven years, the movies lose some of their magic.”

Mr. Terrio recently finished his script for “Justice League,” which starts shooting next month, giving him a key role defining the big- screen versions of DC superheroes. To prepare, the writer says he studied red- and blueshifts in electromagnetic physics to think about the Flash, investigated deep sea biology in the Mariana trench to create the world of Aquaman, and read the Greek historian Diodorus of Sicily’s account of the war between Amazon and Atlantis to better understand Wonder Woman.