MUMBAI: Warner Bros announced on Friday, 17 January that the release of the upcoming sequel to the 2013 blockbuster superhero film, Man of Steel, will now be postponed to 7 May, 2016, nine months later than its previous 17 July, 2015 release date.

As a result of this push to the release date, there’s a potential Warner Bros/DC showdown with rival Disney/Marvel. The movie will now see light of day on Mother’s Day weekend and will face off with Fox’s X-Men: Apocalypse, which comes only a week after. As it stands now, it will be Superman-Batman, X-Men the following weekend, and hot on their tail - The Amazing Spider-Man 3 from Sony.

The Batman v/s Superman film is the high-profile follow-up to last summer's Man of Steel, which grossed $668 million worldwide and rebooted the Superman franchise for Warner Bros.

The follow-up movie, which also will feature The Caped Crusader, is in casting mode and has lined up Ben Affleck (Argo) as Batman and Gal Gadot (Fast & Furious franchise) as Wonder Woman in addition to Henry Cavill (Man of Steel), who is reprising his role as Superman. Jason Momoa (Game of Thrones) is in negotiations for a role as well.

Zack Snyder - 300 fame - is directing the movie, which is now undergoing a rewrite by - the Oscar-winning scribe who penned Argo - Chris Terrio.  David Goyer (co-writer of Man of Steel and creator of Da Vinci’s Demons) wrote the initial draft.