In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the Man of Steel dies while battling Doomsday and is laid to rest in the closing moments of Zack Snyder's DC Comics adaptation. However, in what appeared to be a blatant Justice League tease, the dirt on Clark Kent's coffin started floating seconds before the screen turned black.
Despite the fact the scene seemingly confirmed that Superman was still alive, the director has now explained that this piece of imagery was symbolic in nature rather than sequel bait.
"It's always been symbolic of hope and lessons learned," Snyder said, confirming that it was meant to be symbolic rather than literal. That would certainly explain why the hero was still very much dead when the rest of the Justice League decided to dig him up, but we still don't know how significantly Joss Whedon changed Superman's resurrection with his divisive reshoots.
We do know that Snyder's Superman plans in Justice League were much different to what ended up on screen, though, and while it was easy to see which scenes the filmmaker was responsible for shooting (mostly because Henry Cavill didn't have that weird CGI mouth), it's unclear what context they were meant to be used in.
If the Snyder Cut eventually sees the light of day, we'll get some answers. For now, it remains a mystery, but it's definitely been interesting getting this insight from the Batman v Superman helmer.