From 2013 to 2017, Zack Snyder had creative control over Warner Bros’ DC Extended Universe, during an era in which WB was trying to recreate what Marvel was doing with their wildly successful MCU films. This was post-Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, which concluded with 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises. Snyder made three movies during his tenure at DC: Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, and, most famously, the “Snyder Cut” version of Justice League, none of which were particularly well-received.
After Batman v Superman bombed, Snyder went on the offense to justify the creative decisions he made, most notably by insisting that both Batman and Superman are murderers and he wanted his movie to reflect that. “Well, actually, these beloved superheroes are also villains!” is a wild hill to die on. Well, Snyder is still talking about BvS and the Snyderverse. During an appearance on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, Snyder defended his versions of the characters and described the struggle to keep it rated PG-13.
“My 100 percent honest reaction to BvS and how it’s received in the world is… Do you really want a movie that’s [had] all the edges shaved off it by the focus groups?” Snyder said during a conversation with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “Do you really want a movie that has [had] decisions made in the boardroom, or tested ideas are being rendered for your enjoyment? Do you really want the Kmart version of your story? Is that what you really want?”
Dawn of Justice — as well as Snyder’s other DC movies, Man of Steel and Justice League — received criticism for unconventional renderings of beloved superheroes, including a Batman (Ben Affleck) who shows no remorse after murdering his enemies and a Superman (Henry Cavill) with a darker edge than comic books have typically given him.
Snyder indicated that the film’s unusual handling of its iconic characters, plus its somber mood and grim violence, caused a headache as it was being rated.
“We were trying for the PG-13 [rating] for the movie, [but] the MPAA kept kicking the movie back to us, saying, ‘It’s still an R, it’s still an R,'” the filmmaker recalled. “I’m like, ‘What are you talking about? We’re taking everything out!’ And I remember someone saying we got a report from the MPAA saying like, ‘We just don’t like the idea of Batman fighting Superman. So that kind of makes it an R.'”
Snyder recalled the ratings board objecting to several details in the pivotal battle between the two heroes, noting that they considered it “rude” when the characters slammed into radiators and sinks during their skirmish.
“We should’ve realized then that we were kind of kicking the zeitgeist in the nuts a little bit,” he said. “That we were going to anger people, because not only do they not want their heroes deconstructed, they don’t want their heroes battling each other on a road to deconstructing the ‘why’ of their existence. That is another sacrilege.”
Look, I respect that Snyder had a vision that he wanted to stay true to, but the response to a darker, more destructive Superman in Man of Steel should have been some indication that it wasn’t what audiences wanted to see. Sure, Batman is known to be broody, but we’d just had Nolan’s dramatic Batman films, and he was hired to create an extended universe of comic-book movies to compete with the Marvel movies. Maybe he could have gotten away with creating darker, edgier versions of the characters if the movies were any good. At the end of the day BvS was a bad movie. It was long and boring with a laughable payoff. (“Your mom’s name is Martha too?!”)
Speaking of BvS’s 153-minute runtime, you should be able to make a theatrical cut that isn’t a bajillion hours long. That’s what extended editions and director’s cuts are for, the latter of which Snyder did for BvS and got an R-rating for. Also, I’m not exactly sure why Kmart is catching strays here! Snyder needs to have a little respect for the store that brought us the genius “I just shipped my pants” commercial series. Maybe he should have hired whomever came up with that ad campaign to help make BvS just a little bit more entertaining.
Photos credit: Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon, Clay Enos/Netflix, Getty Images for Netflix, Getty Images
I think his whole tenure was covered by two problems. One Warner Brothers saw the money that Marvel was making hand over fist with the MCU, and wanted to replicate that. But they wanted to replicate it in two movies, when Marvel at that juncture had released seven or eight and had an entire TV show. They rushed the entire idea of a team that the other company has set up over 4 years and several movies.
The second part is that Zack Snyder considers himself an auteur and had a completely different vision than what Warner Brothers was trying to achieve. Christopher Nolan could have just kept making movies if they wanted the dark realistic versions. You’re purposely trying to compete with another company that making bright, punchline heavy, very comedic movies, even if they did have hard storylines at times. So instead you release thematically and visually dark movies, that expected people to buy the closeness of characters with zero development and an encyclopedic knowledge of comics to understand.
Man of Steel was a great Superman reboot but Snyder doesn’t seem to understand what made it good: it was a good story that just happened to also be about superheroes. Also: Amy Adams, Henry Cavill, Diane Lane, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner… it had a GREAT cast.
The next ones were superhero first movies and just so unbelievably cheesy because they had to try so hard to be SERIOUS FILMS. Stop.
Marvel does well because they understand humor. Which is also why James Gunn’s Superman was fun.
They also had a good fit for Superman in Cavill but were afraid to lean into the characters innate goodness. Marvel did the opposite with captain America. They didn’t make him edgy or quippy. They left him as a beacon of hope and liberty and trusted in their story and their actor. And he became the heart and soul of the MCU. DC had that with Superman and they trashed what made the character beloved. Audiences will forgive a lot but not that.
I’m a comic fanboy so I have quite a few opinions on Snyder and his interpretation of these iconic characters. There are moments of brilliance in Snyder’s work, but they are few and far between. He’s the kind of director who is very good at creating visual tableaus but he’s not very good at tying everything together… He really benefits from a skillful editor.
BvS was a hot mess. Honestly, the only bright spot is the introduction of Wonder Woman in her (long-overdue) silver screen debut. Inexplicably, Gal Gadot as Diana steals every scene she’s in. I have no idea how he (and Patty Jenkins in the first WW movie) managed to get that performance out of Gadot but she was a bright spot amidst a lot of miserable gray. Snyder loves that grayscale — he even released the Snyder!cut version of Justice League entirely in grayscale, lol.
This man and his army of incels annoyed me so much. Also Batffleck was the worst Batman by far and don’t get me started on Leto as the Joker.