You probably wouldn't guess it, but the people behind some of your favorite movies and TV shows — even some of the ones that seem the least tied to reality — might have consulted a scientist in an attempt to keep things (sort of) realistic.

A program run by the National Academy of Sciences, The Exchange is a hotline (844-NEED-SCI) that screenwriters can call when they want help with the science in a script — any script.

Sure, some superhero movies can get pretty outlandish, but The Exchange's program director Rick Loverd told Tech Insider that their philosophy isn't about restricting scripts to reality — the science is there to inspire.

"Superman can leap tall buildings in a single bound. That's the character; you have to roll with that," he said. "But then within the world, now let's start to have that more interesting discussion about how you can ground that story in something that is in reality."

Scientists from The Exchange have consulted on an impressive number of blockbuster movies like Big Hero 6, The Amazing Spiderman, The Avengers, Battleship, Iron Man 2, Prometheus, and Tron: Legacy. They've also helped with TV shows including Castle, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, The Good Wife, and House.

Loverd told us about six projects The Exchange consulted on and shared specific examples of exactly what kind of scientific assistance was provided.

1. Ant-Man (Disney, 2015)

There's a scene in Ant-Man where the superhero "goes quantum."

"You would enter a reality where all concepts of time and space become irrelevant," we hear Dr. Hank Pym's voice say as Ant Man gets smaller and smaller. "As you shrink for all eternity, everything that you know and love are gone forever."

This scene had some input from Exchange scientist Spiros Michalakis, a physicist at CalTech.

"We got a call from the producers of Ant-Man while they were on the set in Atlanta," Loverd said. "Michalakis flew out to the set, met the director, and the producers, and Paul Rudd, and had a daylong meeting about the quantum realm."

After Ant-Man came out, Michalakis produced the 12-minute short, "Quantum Chess" where Paul Rudd battles Stephen Hawking in a game, narrated by Keanu Reaves.

It's probably the funniest quantum mechanics has ever been:

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2. Thor (Paramount, 2011)

When Marvel was working on Thor, Loverd said, the creative team wanted to ground the rainbow bridge linking Asgard to Earth in reality, so they asked what physics they could use.

Exchange member and Caltech astrophysicist Sean Carroll suggested a wormhole, but Loverd said the creative team thought that was too 90s.

So Carroll said they could try an Einstein-Rosen bridge, which is basically another name for a wormhole that can connect two distant pieces of spacetime.

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The Rainbow Bridge in Thor being constructed using special effects.

The creative team was also trying to figure out why Jane Foster, who was a nurse in the comic books, would be exactly where Thor landed.

"She’s a nurse. Other than extreme serendipity, what possible reason would she have for being out in the middle of the desert in the middle of the night?" Loverd said the creative team asked Carroll. And he responded: "Well, if she were a theoretical physicist, and she studied Einsten-Rosen bridges, and she had some data to suggest one might be occurring in that general area, then she would have every reason in the world to be exactly in that spot."

So Marvel made Foster a theoretical physicist instead.

3. Watchmen (Warner Bros., 2009)

Alex McDowell, a production designer on the Watchmen, wanted to know why Dr. Manhattan was blue. So he called The Exchange.

James Kakalios, a physicist from the University of Minnesota, went down to the set and gave them a lesson in waveform physics to explain. 

Kakalios made a YouTube version of this lesson, and it's been viewed over 1.8 million times.

"[Kakalios] said that he would have to teach his intro physics class many lifetimes to get to 1.8 million people," Loverd said. "And he won a regional Emmy!"

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When you do a movie as giant as “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” the press tour is so long and spans multiple countries in such a short time, that actors are asked to react to the film’s reception before general audiences have even seen it.

That’s what happened when Yahoo Movies UK sat with the film’s cast and director Zack Snyder, and asked them what they thought of the negative reviews the film is getting (it currently has a 32% rating on Rotten Tomatoes). 

“What is going to really matter, I believe, is what the audience says,” Henry Cavill said. “Because they’re the ones who are buying tickets, they’re the ones who want to see more of this kind of story, or not. So the audience’s voice is loudest, and after this weekend, the audience will at least partly have spoken.”

Ben Affleck, sitting next to Cavill, chimed in with, “I agree.”

Snyder has been getting the brunt of the criticism for his polarizing directing style, full of slow-motion shots and washout-out photography. He said he’s a comic-book guy and that he “made the movie based as much as I could on that aesthetic.”

Amy Adams said that the film wasn’t made “for the critics,” and Gal Gadot, who has received the most praise for her performance as Wonder Woman, added that Snyder did “fantastic work” in setting the basis for future films centered on DC Comics characters.

Meanwhile, Jesse Eisenberg, who plays Lex Luthor, keeps out of these kinds of conversations because he doesn’t read anything about the movies he’s in.

“I don’t even watch the movies I’m in,” he said. “I get very critical.”

Watch the whole video here.

SEE ALSO: Here's how much "Batman v Superman" needs to make to be considered a success

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Sometimes reality really is weirder than anything you could possibly imagine.

James Meyers of Concord, North Carolina, was arrested Tuesday morning for not returning a 2002 VHS rental of the infamously panned comedy “Freddy Got Fingered,” written, directed, and starring Tom Green (originally released in 2001).

According to local station WSOC-TV, Meyers was driving his daughter to school on the Concord Parkway when he was pulled over for a broken tail-light.

The officer ran his license and found that there was a warrant for his arrest from 2002 for “failure to return rental property.”

“The officer said... 'apparently you rented the movie "Freddy Got Fingered" and never returned it.' I thought he was joking,” Meyers told WSOC-TV.

The officer allowed Meyers to drop his daughter off at school and go to work as long as he promised to turn himself in when he got off work.

Meyers did go to the police department Tuesday evening, and he was handcuffed and brought in front of the magistrate, where he was charged. The misdemeanor is punishable by a fine of up to $200.

The warrant was filed by J&J video in February of 2002. The rental store has since gone out of business.

Meyers is due back in court on April 27. 

Tom Green caught wind of what happened and tweeted this on Tuesday:

Green, who was a popular comedian in the late-1990s thanks to his MTV show “The Tom Green Show,” was doing stand-up in Australia when he heard what happened, and spoke about it on the Australian TV show “The Project.”

He said he called Meyers and when he got him on the phone, gave him the line from the movie, “Daddy, would you like some sausage?”

“It’s an example of how bureaucracy can get out of control,” he said.

Why did Meyers have “Freddy Got Fingered” for 14 years? He admitted to the officer he only vaguely remembers renting it. Sounds about right for a movie that many consider one of the worst ever made.

SEE ALSO: The 13 biggest comedy power couples in Hollywood

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NOW WATCH: The best movies of 2015 have this one admirable thing in common

Ahead of the upcoming "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" Blu-ray release, Disney and Lucasfilm released a teaser trailer for the film's deleted scenes. 

We now know for sure there are seven in total. Though we don't know exactly what each will contain, Disney shared the names of each one, so we have some pretty good ideas. It looks like we'll be getting more Finn, Maz Kanata, and Kylo Ren. The Digital HD version of "The Force Awakens" is out April 1 and the Blu-ray and DVD arrives April 5.

Keep reading to see what's in store.

1. “Finn and the Villager”

Finn doesn't have much luck when he first crashes onto the desert sands of Jakku. He stumbles around, desperately, for water and within hours finds himself running from explosions after a chance meeting with Rey. In this scene, we'll likely get to see a few more moments of the ex-stormtrooper's hijinks with the local villagers.

2. “X-Wings Prepare for Lightspeed”

This will likely be an extended version of the X-Wing fighters arriving to Maz Kanata's castle after the First Order attacks and kidnaps Rey. This sequence is best remembered in "The Force Awakens" for the return of Poe Dameron (previously thought dead) before General Leia Organa's big entrance, accompanied by beloved droid, C-3P0, who reunites with Han Solo. 

3. “Snow Speeder Chase”

Likely set after Han Solo's death, this scene will probably show Rey and Finn's escape from Starkiller Base, before their climactic final battle with Kylo Ren. Hasbro has released a few toys showing Stormtroopers pursuing Rey and Finn in vehicles. That may be what we see here.

Where would the Man of Steel be without his iconic cape and tights?

Since its black-and-white onscreen debut in 1948, Superman's suit has gone through a number of upgrades in order to modernize the character.

Superman's abilities may not be reliant on his armor, as in Batman's case, but that doesn't mean his suit isn't important.

Keep reading to see how the suit has changed over the years. 

The original Superman costume was influenced by the Strongman performer's tights seen here. Interestingly, the Strongman's look is itself a reference to the ancient Olympians' robes.

Actor Kirk Alyn portrayed the first live-action appearance of Superman in 1948. Called "The First Superman," it premiered ten years after his comic debut. The suit was basically skin-tight hooded longjohns. The cape is also much shorter than it became in subsequent appearances.

1951: The second on-screen adaptation of Superman, "Superman and the Mole Men," is basically the same as the 1948 version. A key alteration is the longer cape and his belt buckle now matches the belt, and the suit overall looks more coordinated.

(Warning: spoiler for the movie ahead.)

You may have noticed when seeing "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" that it's pretty darn dark. I personally respect the boldness of director Zack Snyder to give us conflicted versions of Superman and Batman, with good and evil not so easily defined.

But there is an instance in the movie where Snyder takes things too far.

In the opening of the movie, Lois Lane (Amy Adams) travels to the Middle East to interview a terrorist. The interview goes awry when the photographer with Lane turns out to be a CIA agent, leading to a bloodbath that includes the photographer being killed and Superman showing up to rescue Lane.

If you know your Superman history, if any photographer on the Daily Planet staff would be working with Lane, it would be Jimmy Olsen. But Jimmy's name is never uttered in the scene.

Well, if you stuck around for the closing credits, you would have seen that the actor playing the photographer/CIA agent in the scene, Michael Cassidy, is credited as Jimmy Olsen.

It's a pretty grim way for lovable Olsen to go out with a bullet to the head. And don't feel all that bad if you didn't catch this, as there is no mention of Olsen at all in the movie. You would think at least, while making out in the bathtub, Lois and Clark would mourn over the death of their good friend Jimmy. And, yeah, wasn't it crazy that he was really a CIA agent? 

Then again, you could make the argument that Snyder, who has said all he's trying to do is adapt the comics that he loves, is taking a page from source material.

In Mark Millar's 2003 comic series "Superman: Red Son," which follows the premise of what would happen if Superman had been raised in the Soviet Union, Jimmy Olsen is a CIA agent. And if you want your minds blown a little more, in the series he recruits Lex Luthor to kill Superman.

Snyder told Entertainment Weekly why Olsen gets the cameo treatment.

“We just did it as this little aside because we had been tracking where we thought the movies were gonna go, and we don’t have room for Jimmy Olsen in our big pantheon of characters, but we can have fun with him, right?”

In fact, Snyder admitted to EW that originally they wanted a star to play the Olsen role. The actor he had in mind was Jesse Eisenberg.

“I thought, if it were Jesse Eisenberg and he got out and he goes, ‘I’m Jimmy Olsen,’ you’d be like, oh my God, we’re gonna have Jimmy Olsen in the whole movie, right?’” Snyder says. “And then if he got shot, you’d just be like, ‘What!? You can’t do that.’”

Eisenberg was signed on to play Olsen, but while searching for a Lex Luthor, Snyder decided to go young with the character and moved Eisenberg into the villain role.

Snyder also noted to EW, that in the extended R-rated Blu-ray of "Batman v Superman" out this summer, it is clearer that the character is Olsen, as he introduces himself to Lane.

"Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" is currently in theaters. 

SEE ALSO: Critics brutally took down "Batman v Superman"— here are the problems they had with it

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Though most critics may hate it, so far general audiences are coming out in droves for "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice."

The film took in $27.7 million in its Thursday preview screenings, according to TheWrap.

That's the highest earner ever for a preview day leading up to Easter weekend.

The film, which pegs two of the biggest comic-book characters against one another, and touts the latest big-screen arrival of Wonder Woman, is on pace to hit the film's early projections of making around $150 million over the holiday weekend. It could have its sights on breaking the record for the biggest opening over Easter (currently held by "Furious 7" with $147 million) and perhaps the highest opening weekend for the month of March ("The Hunger Games" currently holds it with $152 million).

By Friday, the film will be playing in over 4,000 locations.

It should be noted, though, that if audiences find that they agree with critics, the spread of bad word of mouth could do serious damage to future box-office performance for the Warner Bros. blockbuster.

SEE ALSO: Warner Bros. is planning 11 more superhero movies after "Batman v Superman"— here they all are

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NOW WATCH: Here are Hollywood's biggest donors in the 2016 election and how much they're spending

The larger-than-life musicians we worship have been brought to the big screen for decades, in biopics that range from transformative to middling.

And finding actors who can accurately portray those artists often requires musical training, studying mannerisms, and physical transformations.

While some roles merely require learning some choreography and slight makeup, others are more intensive, such as Jamie Foxx having his eyes glued shut to portray Ray Charles. 

This year, a number of musical biopics are hitting the screen, including one with British actor Tom Hiddleston as Southern musician Hank Williams and Don Cheadle as jazz artist Miles Davis. 

Here are 20 of the most notable transformations: 

SEE ALSO: Here's how 'Daredevil' star Charlie Cox got ripped to be a superhero

Tom Hiddleston — Hank Williams

The English actor transformed into the folk singer, Southern drawl and all, for "I Saw the Light." Hiddleston stayed with singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell for five weeks and was coached in Williams' mannerisms and singing style. The film hit theaters March 25. 

Don Cheadle — Miles Davis

Cheadle was first roped into this project back in 2006 when Miles Davis, who died in 1991, was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Afterward, Davis' nephew said Cheadles would play his uncle in a film of his life. Cheadle eventually cowrote a script, signed on to direct, and portrayed the jazz musician in "Miles Ahead," which will be released April 6. 

(Cheadle also portrayed Sammy Davis Jr. in 1998's “The Rat Pack,” for which he won a Golden Globe.)

Jason Mitchell — Eazy-E

Jason Mitchell's transformation into the late N.W.A rapper Eazy-E for "Straight Outta Compton" blew critics away. The relatively unknown "consistently out-acts the rest of the performers," a New York Times review said. Mitchell, who has a similarly built frame to Eazy-E, gained weight, practiced a South Los Angeles accent, and learned how to rap for the role, according to the Los Angeles Times. Corey Hawkins became Dr. Dre and O'Shea Jackson Jr. transformed into his father, Ice Cube, for the film.

Scroll through the comments under any less-than-glowing review of "Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice," and you'll encounter a few recurring themes. (Actually, under no circumstances should you read the comments yourself. Just trust me on this.) There's the old saw about critics not getting it, expecting a Batman movie to be "fun" when everyone knows that Batman stories are dark and gritty. (Not remotely true before Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns" permanently transformed the character, but okay.) There's the idea that movies are meant as entertainment, and any who thinks about them too hard is just missing the point. All par for the course. But then you get into the particular pathology of certain comic-book fans, the ones who just know that a movie they haven't yet seen is awesome, and anyone who doesn't agree is either crooked or irretrievably biased. (As a hilarious string of retweets from producer Keith Calder underlines, the latter complaint is almost always lodged by people who think that "bias" is an adjective, but we'll leave that alone for now.) Here's one, from a review by The Wrap's Alonso Duralde: "You give this a rotten score, yet you give the last two 'Hunger Games' a fresh rating? Yea, you're bought and a fraud!" Matt Zoller Seitz's review on Roger Ebert.com gets "How much did Marvel pay you for this review?" followed shortly by "There is absolutely no denying that Marvel had a budget set aside to pay critics for negative reviews. They don't want competition."

To state the blindingly obvious: The precise number of reviewers who have been paid to negatively review "Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice" is zero. Studios can buy influence through junkets and other perks, but it's always aimed at getting critics to like their product, not dislike someone else's. You can argue that critics have it in for Zack Snyder — or, if you're the kind of person who thinks they're "bias," that they have it out for him — but the idea that actual money changed hands is preposterous. More to the point, it boggles that mind that there are people for whom the only possible explanation for a critic — or, really, anyone — disliking "Dawn of Justice" is that they've been paid to dislike it. It's like the people who believe that all the protestors at Donald Trump rallies are hired operatives of the Democratic Party, as if Trump didn't go out of his way every day to say something that enrages people.

It's the latter connection that sticks, because it underlines how many Americans have secreted themselves in an airtight echo chamber where they only interact with people who believe what they believe, to the extent that the existence of people outside that circle begins to feel like a myth — kind of like "The Village," where Bernie Sanders voters or people who hated "Man of Steel" become Those We Don't Speak Of. It's hard to confront the possibility that a movie you've anticipated for years might be a letdown — so hard, in fact, that some people would sooner convince themselves it's great, no matter how much actual movie they have to overlook in the process. But then, that's unfair, too: Viewers like and dislike things for all kinds of reasons, and as long as they've got a decent argument to go along with their opinion, it's no better or worse than any other. People holding opinions that differ from your own isn't a conspiracy, mostly because it doesn't need to be.

SEE ALSO: Critics brutally took down 'Batman v Superman' — here are the problems they had with it

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Studios spend millions on the production of their big motion pictures. The budgets for these blockbuster hopefuls are expected to soar to incredible heights in the future.

Produced by Jacqui Frank. Original reporting by Kirsten Acuna and Jason Guerrasio.

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Warning: there are major spoilers ahead if you have not seen "Batman v Superman."

There aren't too many shocking moments in "Batman v Superman." 

If you've watched all of the trailers and preview footage, you won't be surprised by the film's overarching plot. It's pretty predictable. 

However, there were a few shocking moments (I counted a total of three while watching). One of them happened towards the end of the film, and most people probably didn't see it coming.

This is your last chance to head back before major spoilers!

Toward the end of the film, Lex Luthor unleashes Doomsday — a Frankensteined monster he creates from Kryptonian science and General Zod— upon Gotham City and it's up to Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman to take him down.

The only problem is that Doomsday is pretty much indestructible. Like Superman, he has super strength, speed, and the ability to heal.

Superman figures that since Doomsday is part Kryptonian (like himself) they probably share one weakness: Kryptonite, a mineral from Superman's home planet.

The Man of Steel risks his life, killing Doomsday, but in the process, Superman ends up getting killed by Doomsday.

Yes, Superman dies in "Batman v Superman."

If you're a comic fan, you probably weren't too surprised by this.

The scene was straight out of one of the most popular Superman stories, 1992's "The Death of Superman," in which both characters die.

Fans will know Superman doesn't stay dead, and it's something that's hinted at during the film's final moments. In 1993, Superman returns in "Reign of the Superman!"

It's a little surprising "Batman v Superman" decided to go this route. Doomsday is a pretty big DC villain who was easily introduced and killed in about a span of 15 minutes. It also seems odd to "off" Superman when fans will know he's not really in danger. 

"BvS" is kicking off Warner Bros.' big superhero franchise. One of the studio's next movies is "Justice League," of which Superman is a main member. You don't just kill the Man of Steel.

"Batman v Superman" is currently in theaters.

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As the box-office returns for Hollywood blockbusters continue to break records, so do the budgets to make and market them. 

With Warner Bros.' highly anticipated "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" opening Friday, rumors are that it's the most expensive movie of all time, with a supposed $410 million price tag (though that might also include the cost to market it).

While the studio is staying mum about the movie's cost, given how budgets have ballooned over the decades, it's not long before $300 million to 400 million production budgets become the norm for blockbusters.

To look at the evolution, we turned to IMDb and Box Office Mojo to gather the 30 priciest films ever made, and we consulted the consumer price index to adjust for inflation. 

We've also included the movies' estimated original budgets and box-office revenue for comparison.

Let's find out if spending all that dough was worth it.

Note: Numbers in the titles are adjusted for inflation, while original budgets are below.

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30. "Troy" (2004) $218.9 million — adjusted for inflation

Original estimated budget: $175 million
Worldwide gross: $497.4 million

27. [TIE] "2012" (2009) $220.4 million

Original estimated budget:$200 million
Worldwide gross: $769.7 million

27. [TIE] "Terminator Salvation" (2009) $220.4 million

Original estimated budget:$200 million
Worldwide gross: $371.5 million

Warning: There are spoilers ahead for "Batman v Superman."

The first screenings of "Batman v Superman" have finished and it is a lot to process. 

While the main villains of the film are Doomsday and Lex Luthor, the film hints at a larger force down the line that DC's finest may have to combat. We've seen it teased in one of the film's previous trailers here.

Last chance to head back before spoilers!

In one of the film's best — and maybe most confusing — sequences, Bruce Wayne has a nightmarish vision of an apocalyptic wasteland which feels straight out of "Mad Max."

Batman's wearing a really cool suit — referred to as the Knightmare Batman look.

We see him looking out over a disparate land with a strange Omega symbol. (More on this soon.) If you've been paying close attention to the trailers, this will be familiar.

We see Ben Affleck's Batman fighting a bunch of military men sporting Superman patches.

That's not all. The world is littered with mysterious winged creatures, picking up random people.

The Man of Steel has seemingly lost his good-guy edge and is calling the shots in the future. 

He has the Dark Knight tied up, and unmasks him as Bruce Wayne.

When Wayne finally wakes up, he sees a vision of The Flash (Ezra Miller) through, what appears to be, a time portal or breach from another dimension. It could even be from the future (The Flash can time travel). He warns Batman about someone, presumably Superman:

"You're right about him. You've always been right. She's the key, Lois."

What is going on?

This is all a vision — well most of it. That last part with The Flash seems pretty real.

Costume designer Michael Wilkinson previously told Brazilian site Omelete this is a dream sequence and that it had some inspiration from "Mad Max," another Warner Bros.' film.

"Zack had a great idea of this sort of nightmare-ish vision, almost a vision of the future, a post-apocalyptic vision. It's like a dream that Ben has, so we wanted to, it has almost a Mad Max quality to it where it's like the end of the world, trying to survive and then of course Superman and his minions come, so it's sort of a way of representing the amazing amounts of, the sort of obsessive quality that Bruce Wayne has about the threat of Superman."

In case you're not convinced, remember the name of the Batman toy is called Knightmare Batman. In the film, Batman/Bruce Wayne sees Superman as a giant threat to mankind. The first time he saw Superman was while he was tearing down buildings — including a Wayne Financial tower — at the end of "Man of Steel."

He doesn't know Superman like we do. So it's natural for Wayne to see him as a frightening alien and to consider the worst-case scenario of what may occur if Superman is allowed to continue to roam free without consequences.

While we know it's a vision, there's one main takeaway, here. 

There are a lot of hints at DC's "Justice League" villain

Those flying creatures seen in the apocalyptic vision are Parademons.

What are those? They're the minions of an even bigger villain named Darkseid.

Here's how the Parademons look in the comics:

And here's another look at them in animated form going up against Superman:

Who is Darkseid?

Darkseid's an even bigger villain of Superman's than Doomsday. He's the ruler of a number of planets including his home of Apokolips (get it?). All you really need to know about him is that he wants to rule the entire universe. Naturally, Earth seems like a good place to try and conquer.

So back to that mysterious Omega symbol "Mad Max" Batman sees in the ground.

That's a symbol used by Darkseid.

His big power is known as the Omega Effect, which allows him to vaporize anything — person, superhero, or object. He can also send items and people across time and space. Pretty scary stuff. He did it in the comics to Batman in a six-issue series, "Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne." On TV series "Smallville" he was also capable of turning people dark. 

Where does the Flash come in to all this?

Since the Flash has the ability to time travel, it appears he's traveling back in time to warn Bruce Wayne about a future where Darkseid rules the planet. In order to stop it, it sounds like he has to handle Superman.

We hear the Flash say, "You were right about him." (Not sure why the Flash couldn't be more specific. Come on! Make use of your time travel abilities.) Still, it seems pretty clear he's talking about Supes. He mentions Lois, presumably Lane, and says that she's the key. The key to what? Maybe if she was to die, her death would result in Superman going dark and Darkseid rising to prominence. Or, more likely, her death results in Darkseid rising to prominence and turning Superman against the Justice League.

If that's the case, wow. Lane has a lot of power. The death of one journalist results in the destruction of humanity.

It's not certain whether The Flash caused Batman to have this vision or not. Either way, I'm sure we'll learn more about this as the DC Extended Universe continues to unfold on screen.

After "Batman v Superman," Warner Bros. has a full slate of DC Comics movies ready to roll out leading up to a giant two-part "Justice League" movie which will be released in 2017 and 2019. Darkseid may very well be one of the big villains the entire Justice League team will have to face off against together.

"Batman v Superman" is in theaters now.

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Though critics vilified the movie, audiences certainly didn't.

The much anticipated "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice," had a record-setting weekend at the box office, as it took in an estimated $170.1 million domestically, according to pro.boxoffice.com.

That's the biggest opening-weekend figure of all time for a pre-summer release.

The movie also broke the record for the largest pre-summer opening day ($82 million), the largest opening in the month of March (beating "The Hunger Games," $152 million), the largest opening ever for Easter weekend (beating "Furious 7," $147 million), and the largest opening for the film's studio, Warner Bros ("Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2," $169 million). 

This is a huge success for the studio, specifically, as its coming off the busts of blockbuster titles like last year's "Jupiter Ascending" and "Pan." But it also proves that its launch of movies on DC Comics characters ("Suicide Squad" and "Justice League" on deck) can compete with the already successful Marvel characters that have been dominating the box office.

However, "Batman v Superman," budgeted around $250 million, didn't get out of the gates cleanly.

Going into the weekend the big news was the almost universal bashing of the film by critics. (It currently has a 29% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.)

But that narrative went away when the film took in $27.7 million in its Thursday-preview screenings, the biggest preview-day figure ever going into Easter weekend. 

The movie then made $82 million on Friday, the biggest pre-summer Friday (beating out last year's "Furious 7" with $67.4 million).

And overseas the news is also positive. The film has already made over $115 million as of Saturday in 17 territories, according to Deadline. And in China, the film is Warner Bros.' biggest opening ever with $57.1 million in just three days.

A major reason for the record-breaking figures is because Warner Bros. flooded the film, with it playing in 35,000 screens around the world — something only done for the major summer releases.

The next test for the film will be its staying power. As word of mouth floods on social media, will general-audience consensus match how the critics feel, or will repeat viewings begin?

Rounding out the weekend releases, Disney's "Zootopia" continues to be a hit, as it came in second with $23.1 million and is now at a total domestic of $240 million. While "My Big Fat Greek Weeding 2" played the counter-program to "Batman v Superman," attracting females not into the comic-book characters, earning an estimated $18.1 million to land in third.

SEE ALSO: Here's how much "Batman v Superman" needs to make to be considered a success

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Though critics vilified the movie, audiences certainly didn't.

The much anticipated "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice," had a record-setting weekend at the box office as it took in an estimated $170.1 million domestically, according to pro.boxoffice.com.

That's the biggest opening weekend figure of all time for a pre-summer release.

The movie also broke the record for the the largest pre-summer opening day ($82 million), the largest opening in the month of March (beating "The Hunger Games," $152 million), largest opening ever for Easter weekend (beating "Furious 7," $147 million), and the largest opening for the film's studio, Warner Bros ("Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2," $169 million). 

This is a huge success for the studio, specifically, as its coming off busts of blockbuster titles like last year's "Jupiter Ascending" and "Pan." But, it also proves that its launch of movies on DC Comics characters ("Suicide Squad" and "Justice League" on deck) can compete with the already successful Marvel characters that have been dominating the box office.

However, "Batman v Superman," budgeted around $250 million, didn't get out of the gates cleanly.

Going into the weekend the big news was the almost universal bashing of the film by critics (it currently has a 29% rating on Rotten Tomatoes). But that narrative went away when the film took in $27.7 million in its Thursday preview screenings, the biggest preview day figure ever going into Easter weekend. 

The movie then made $82 million on Friday, the biggest pre-summer Friday (beating out last year's "Furious 7" with $67.4 million).

And overseas the news is also positive. The film has already made over $115 million as of Saturday in 17 territories, according to Deadline. And in China, the film is Warner Bros.' biggest opening ever with $57.1 million in just three days.

A major reason for the record-breaking figures is because Warner Bros. flooded the film with it playing in 35,000 screens around the world. Something only done for the major summer releases.

The next test for the film will be its staying power. As word of mouth floods on social media, will general audience consensus match how the critics feel, or will repeat viewings begin?

Rounding out the weekend releases, Disney's "Zootopia" continues to be a hit as it came in second with $23.1 million, now at a total domestic of $240 million. While "My Big Fat Greek Weeding 2" played the counter-program to "Batman v Superman," attracting females not into the comic book characters with an estimated $18.1 million to land in third.

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That trailer you can't stop watching used it. One of Disney's most memorable songs did it. And it's in almost every movie you see on TV or on an airplane.

You've probably never heard of voice matching before, but it's one of Hollywood's oldest and most useful tricks.

Like stunt doubles or digital retouching, voice matching — also known as "voice double" or "soundalike"— is a tool the movie business uses to conjure the fantasy we imagine in our heads. It's a process in which voiceover artists are hired in postproduction to come in and double for the voice of a star. And if the voice match is done right, you’ll never know that a line of dialogue actually came from someone other than the actor you see on-screen.

It often happens when an actor is already working on another movie and can't come in to do the ADR session (additional dialogue replacement), which takes place months after filming. And there are some stars who simply hate doing ADR, even adding clauses refusing to do it in their contracts. There's good reason for that: ADR is quite challenging.

When a movie or TV show is in postproduction, all sound has to be mixed for the footage that's being used in editing. If dialogue can't be heard because of noise on the set or a mic malfunction, the actor must come in for ADR sessions to rerecord the dialogue. (Actors are also asked to come in to do "clean versions" of movies, dubbing over curse words with words that will be suitable for TV or airplanes.)

But the lines must be delivered with the exact tone that was used on the set. If you were out of breath then, you have to sound that way again.

"There are those actors who hate to do ADR," supervising sound editor/rerecording mixer Michael J. Fox told Business Insider. Fox has been overseeing voice matching since the late 1990s. "They are far removed from what they did on-set, there's no one to play off of, you can't get back in the headspace you were in. They are often like, 'Fine, voice-match it, totally fine with that.'"

But some big stars are happy to do it. Fox recalls Meryl Streep coming in to do her ADR for the film "August: Osage County," and Matt Damon and Ben Affleck showed up to do it for "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back." Fox remembers asking Damon why he was doing it, and the actor's answer was simple: "I'll do anything for Kevin Smith," referring to the film's director.

But some stars can't stand the process. Fox handled ADR for the indie "Rolling Kansas," starring Thomas Haden Church. The actor was so baffled by having to voice clean audio that he decided to just say whatever was in his head.

"If the original line was 'bulls--t,' he would replace it with 'peanut butter and jelly,'" Fox said. "It was funny. The TV version was just ridiculous."

2 voice actors who pretend to be Cameron Diaz and Owen Wilson

Married couple Jessica Gee-George and Grant George are veteran voice-over actors who have imitated stars including Cate Blanchett and Owen Wilson over the years.

They say the process usually begins with an email from a postproduction supervisor about the actor they would match and how many lines they would perform. Sometimes they simply agree to the job if the supervisor knows they can do it. Otherwise they audition for the voice match, sending out a file they recorded at home.

If they get it, the job is usually no longer than a four-hour day. They record in a studio with the footage in front of them on a big screen. The director often walks them through the lines, ranging from screaming for hours to saying a few lines that got garbled. The work is often needed for action scenes.

"Whether it's a fighting scene or it's a close-up of someone breathing, the actors don't come back for that type of work," Gee-George said, noting that she did Cameron Diaz's screams and gasps in the car-crash scene in 2001's "Vanilla Sky."

The recent trend, however, is voice-matching in trailers for big films that kick off publicity over a year before release. Studios will rush to get out small teasers without any audio ready for the footage they want to use. That's when the voice-over artists get a call.

"They often need a nice, clean line of dialogue," George said. "Sometimes they even use our voices as a temp for when they send the trailers for approval to the studio."

When a dead actor needs to be brought back to life

Voice matching also comes up when an actor is deceased. Stephen Stanton is a go-to guy when a film, TV show, or video game needs the voice of an actor who is no longer with us.

He's currently the voice of Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin in "Star Wars Rebels" and Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi in numerous "Star Wars" games. He was also the voice of film critic Roger Ebert in the documentary "Life Itself" and legendary horse-racing announcer Chic Anderson in the movie "Secretariat."

"This is not about being an impressionist," Stanton told Business Insider of voice matching. "You're all of a sudden being put into the position of being the lead actor in that film for a day, so you've got to get into the actor's head and into the script."

You also have to be able to match up perfectly with the lips on-screen, which goes a lot further than just getting the vocal tone right. And Stanton, who boasts being able to do more than 200 voices on the spot (here are some of them), says you have to be ready to work at a moment's notice.

"Sometimes a trailer house needs you in 10 minutes. They are in a real crunch," he said. "They are putting something together and it has to get to the studio for approval. There's no real rehearsal with something like that — you can either do the voice or you can't."

The legendary actor who didn't do his own voice on a 'Lion King' song

There's no better example of 11th-hour voice matching than Jim Cummings' work on "The Lion King."

The voiceover actor remembers hanging around the studio one day when he was summoned by Tim Rice and Elton John. They were mixing a song for the Disney classic, specifically "Be Prepared," performed by the film's villain Scar, voiced by Jeremy Irons.

"They wanted me to take a crack at doing the song," Cummings told Business Insider. "As one of them put it to me, Irons singing sounded like, 'You could hear every Marlboro the man has ever smoked in his life.'"

Cummings had been the lead singer for The California Raisins, the animated musical group, during its heyday in the late 1980s. And he has been the voice of Disney's Winnie the Pooh and Tigger since 1987, among many others.

Though he had never done Irons' voice before, with only eight days before the premiere of "The Lion King" in theaters, Rice and John needed someone with a better singing voice but who could still sound like Irons.

"The way I saw it, if I stink, we're going to know pretty quick," Cummings said. "So I did it, and apparently I nailed it."

But there was still one last hurdle to cross. Jeffrey Katzenberg, then the head of Disney's animation studio, had to sign off on the performance.

"They went in and played the song," Cummings said. "And Jeffrey was like, 'That sounds great, it's fantastic. I thought you guys were worried Jeremy [Irons] wasn't going to be able to pull it off.' And they were like, 'So you like it, Jeffrey?' Like four times they asked him, and he's like, 'It's great,' and then they said, 'Great. By the way, it's not Jeremy.' And Jeffery was like, 'What?!' And they explained what had to be done and me coming in, and he was like, 'I still like it.'"

Cummings has also filled in on songs for Christopher Lloyd in "Anastasia,"Russell Means in "Pocahontas," and Danny DeVito in "Hercules."

"It's a tough thing when you're in the studio with a guy who's really talented and he's a great actor, but he just can't sing," Cummings said. "It can be frustrating for everyone. But voice actors are character actors, and that's just what they sound like. It's the character first and the voice second, because you have to be true to the character and flesh him out and make him real."

Working in the shadows

"It's a profession that's right in front of your face, but you don't see it," Cummings said of voice-matching work.

The actors are rarely credited for their work, and if they are, it's usually with an "additional voice" credit.

"It's a facet of the illusion of movie and TV making," Grant said. "It's like when people are shocked a scene was shot on a sound stage instead of in a house."

Though voice-matching gigs are fairly regular, it's hard to make a living on them. They pay from a union scale of about $900 to somewhere in the four-figure range for a day's work. That's regardless of whether the voice is used; if it is used, the voice actor also gets residuals on the project.

Often voice-matching artists won't know whether they can be heard in the movie until they see it themselves and try to catch where their performance is.

Though it's a job these performers will hardly ever get any recognition for, all of the voice actors interviewed for this story said they were doing their dream job and loved the fact that few people knew what was going on behind the curtain.

"I don't think audiences know this is going on at all, and that's the whole point of it," Stanton said of voice matching. "If everyone is doing their job well, this is done very seamlessly, and no one is aware that it's happening, and that's all part of movie magic. You don't want to take people out of it."

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"Batman v Superman" reviews have been anything but great. Critics have been pretty uniform in pointing the finger at director Zack Snyder as part of the film's problem. 

The key recurring criticism of "Batman v Superman" is that the story is heavy-handed, confusing, and detracts from the action. Independent, Slashfilm, Examiner and Gizmodo have all uniformly branded the film "convoluted." And while the director certainly has a distinct and typically well-received visual style, words like "convoluted" and "confusing" reoccur in reviews of nearly every film Zack Snyder has ever directed.

"Sucker Punch," for example, was a 2011 film about a young girl sent to an insane asylum. To escape, she creates a series of dream realities in which she and her friends become zombie slayers, samurai, World War II soldiers, and, oddly enough, exotic dancers. ScreenRant called the film a "confused mish-mash of fantasy set pieces retro-fitted with a convoluted narrative." 

"Man of Steel," which introduced us to Henry Cavill's Superman, was similarly criticized for its heavy-handedness. NYDailyNews references more "convoluted events" in the plot and NYMag writer Matt Zoller Seitz called the film a "convoluted and violent" retelling of Kal-El's origins.

"Watchmen," the adaptation of the Alan Moore graphic novel, received an overall warmer reception, but the convolution remains. Both MovieGuide and New Republic deemed it "convoluted." Wall Street Journal called all the heavy-handedness in the story a type of "psychic suffocation," with USA Today calling the plot"pretentious and overheated."

Critics hypothesize Snyder's mixing of ideological conversations into action movies is an attempt to one-up Christopher Nolan, the director behind the acclaimed "The Dark Knight" trilogy. The Atlantic even went so far as to call "Man of Steel" the "The Dark Knight-ification of Superman." The official New York Times review of "Batman v Superman" also questions if Snyder is trying to emulate Nolan. 

Snyder certainly has big, bold ideas about things like morality, divinity, and humanity, but critics are routinely disappointed with how he clunkily executes them within big budget films.

Snyder is signed on to direct the upcoming "Justice League" films, but Warner Bros. has to be listening to the criticism of "Batman v Superman." What really matters is how the film does at the box office. Right now, it's on track for a $180 million opening weekend.  

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"Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" pulls double-duty both as its own action epic and as setup for the rest of the DC Extended Universe. 

Not only did we get the debut of Ben Affleck's Batman and Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman, but fans also saw glimpses of future Justice League members.  Their cameos are depicted as surveillance footage found among files uncovered from Lex Luthor. 

Following the events of "Man of Steel," people are suspicious of "metahumans," people with extraordinary abilities. Luthor has been keeping track of people worldwide caught on video displaying their powers.

Midway through the film, Bruce and Diana get their hands on Luthor's files and we see brief glimpses of these metahumans. 

Read on to see which heroes "Batman v Superman" teased and when we'll see their solo adventures. 

Wonder Woman has a small but vital role in the film. When we meet her, she's tracking Lex Luthor. She tells Bruce he's stolen a photograph of hers.

We find out the photograph is from 1918. Diana is centuries years old and participated in the events leading up to World War I. This image, from her upcoming solo film, implies we'll eventually see the story of the photograph.

Wonder Woman's solo film is coming June 23, 2017.

If you head out to see “Batman v Superman” this weekend, don’t waste your time sitting after the credits waiting for additional bonus scenes.

You won’t be getting any.

There are zero post-credits scenes attached to "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice."

It may have been a weird experience for fans who have gotten used to staying after the credits during Marvel superhero films. Disney's Marvel movies have become known for dropping little teasers and additional nuggets for fans while the credits roll.

"Avengers: Age of Ultron"had one mid-credits sequence. Even Fox's February Marvel movie "Deadpool"had an end-credits scene. 

Instead, "Batman v Superman" adds anything that could have been an effective post-credits scene into the movie, resulting in an overstuffed film which has been trashed by critics.

Hints at future superheroes in "Justice League"? Yep. A bizarrely, stunning sequence showing off a potential future villain? Yup. 

Maybe Warner Bros. would have been better off leaving some of this for post-credits scenes.

"Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" is in theaters now.

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Not only does Batman have a sleek new Batmobile in "Batman v Superman," but his alter ego Bruce Wayne also drives a flashy car.

Wayne drives a green 1957 Aston Martin in the film, according to a recent article in Bloomberg Pursuits.

You can spot the car when Wayne heads to a gala hosted by Lex Luthor.

Here's a better look at the car, a Mark III.

In Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" trilogy, Wayne drives three different Lamborghinis— two Murciélagos in "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight," and an Aventador in "The Dark Knight Rises." (Murciélago means bat in Spanish.)

Why the change?

The Aston Martin belongs to "Batman v Superman" director Zack Snyder. It's been a favorite car of Snyder's since he began filmmaking.

Bloomberg Pursuits reports he purchased his first used Aston Martin for $28,000. After the success of his 2007 movie "300,"which made $456 million worldwide, Warner Bros. bought him a $350,000 Aston Martin Vanquish and offered him a production deal.

"They don't really do that in Hollywood anymore," said Snyder.

While the car is a favorite of Snyder's, many Batfans will be quick to notice it's also a favorite of James Bond. The latter is often cited as Britain'sBatman and Bond drove an Aston Martin DB10 in last year's "Spectre."

For those who like to make the comparison between the two, this will only add fuel to the fire.

"Batman v Superman" is in theaters March 25, 2016.

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