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I liked Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, but because it currently has a 62% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I can’t say it’s a Guilty Pleasure. I do hear a lot of hate from my social media connections, though, and many of them have told me that they actually liked the Ultimate Edition because of the additional information it provides. (One suggested that the same thing could be said about the Watchman Extended Cut.) I agree that the additional scenes improve BvS, but that raised a question for me: Why not keep them in the cinematic release?
The Ultimate Edition is 3 hours and 3 minutes long (including credits). I’ve seen 3-hour movies in the theater, so if the scenes are already filmed and modified in post production (i.e., paid for), why waste them? Give people their money’s worth, improve the movie, and your reviews will be better. I can think of three responses to my question.
Response 1: You want some deleted scenes to make the home release more enticing.
Counterpoint: If people don’t like your movie, nothing will entice them to buy your home releases.
Response 2: I’m operating from hindsight. There was no way to know that the deleted scenes would have improved the movie.
Counterpoint: Does anyone really think that the test audiences didn’t like the deleted scenes? They made the movie much better. Aren’t filmmakers professionals? Why can’t they figure out how to use test audiences to get the right result, especially for movies with such huge budgets?
Response 3: Three hour (or more) movies are too long.
Counterpoint: Bring back the intermission so that people with short attention spans and weak bladders can handle it. Oh, snap!
Who’s got a response #4? I’ll defeat that one too.
I can’t believe they cut Jon Stewart. At this point, I suspect that cutting scenes is simply a strange sort of tradition among filmmakers.
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Play What You Want 
To be fair, even the extended edition of BvS is lacking, but yes the added scenes really flesh things out a lot more. In terms of your question about cutting scenes it’s a mercenary thing usually, and it would have especially been informed by the fact that they knew they were coming in on the heels of Captain America: Civil War. WB wanted to get more showings in because more showings mean more box office, and I think also there are mistakes made during that decision process for other reasons. I just wish that the discussions about BvS could have been more civil, and I am kinda regretful about how much glee i took in that specific pile-on. But it came out during the absolute height of Marvel’s power, and it was inevitable that people would savage it as a result. Doesn’t make it right, just inevitable.
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