The 8-year-old interview opens up some insight on just how “dark” Zack Snyder wants his comic book films.
[dropcap size=small]R[/dropcap]eddit user ctoan8 recently unearthed an old 2008 interview between Entertainment Weekly and Batman v Superman director Zack Snyder. The post garnished the attention of fans and critics of Snyder as they disputed the quality and occasional absurdity of his DC film adaptations, most recently BvS.
The interview is actually pretty eye-opening and gives readers a look into what Snyder considers “important” when directing a film of his own. As such, we’re here to analyze his answers in an attempt to take you, dear reader, on a journey through the mind of writer and director Zack Snyder..
“he (Batman) doesn’t, like, get raped in prison. That could happen in my movie.” -actual quote from Zack Snyder
The first question asked by EW’s Jeff Jenssen is whether or not Snyder was a comic fan growing up, since he took the reigns on 300 and Watchmen, to which Snyder responds by basically saying that while his friends were reading comics like Batman and Spider-Man he was reading Heavy Metal Magazine. When his friends tried to introduce him to what he calls “normal” comics, Snyder said:
“No one is having sex or killing each other. This isn’t really doing it for me.”
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Well, guess it kinda puts Snyder’s views into perspective. Seriously, this guy is in charge of the Justice League.
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I believe that Snyder is under the assumption that if his work contains “darker” subject matter, it is automatically superior and more interesting than a piece that doesn’t. He’s free to have his own opinions, likes and dislikes, just like everyone is, but projecting that idea onto millions of fans that were counting on the films to be something different seems to have come back to bite him more often than not. Reddit user CountScarlioni may have summarized it best in a comment on the Reddit thread:
“This just sounds like the “Marvel’s not dark enough! It’s kiddie shit!” crowd to me. I know he’s not specifically referring to Marvel in this case, but, it’s the same sentiment. I can’t tell you how utterly tired I am of the modern fetishization of death/”dark” content and the notion that it automatically makes things better.”
And if that wasn’t enough, Snyder continued the interview to talk about Christopher Nolan’s Batman saying,
“Everyone says that about Batman Begins. ‘Batman’s dark.’ I’m like, okay, ‘No, Batman’s cool.’ He gets to go to a Tibetan monastery and be trained by ninjas. Okay? I want to do that. But he doesn’t, like, get raped in prison. That could happen in my movie.”
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Changes the meaning of “Dark” Knight to a whole new level of cringe.
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I’ll let you guys take what you want out of that one, not much explanation needed here. Jennsen later asks him that since Watchmen is finally being filmed, does it mean that audiences are ready for “darker” superhero movies; to which he responds with the following:
“The average movie audience has seen — well, I can’t even count the amount of superhero movies. Fantastic Four, X-Men, Superman, Spider-Man. The Marvel universe has gone nuts; we’re going to have a fricking Captain America movie if we’re not careful. Thor, too!”
Well I hate to break it to you, Zack, but these films did happen and many of them were found to be pretty great by both fans and critics alike. Notice how this response re-affirms our theory that Zack Snyder may just have the wrong idea when it comes to directing comic book adaptations, but that’s just our take. Marvel may not be the best at what they do (but they might be), but they never necessarily got “darker” with their modernized take on superhero films (there’s a difference) and are now breaking box-office records with every other release.
Look I’ll admit I’m a little bias towards DC– Superman was my idol growing up and I’m a big fan to this day, but I believe fans like me are justified in believing that Zack Snyder dealt us a slightly dusty hand.
The above being said, you can check out our own collaborative team review of Batman V. Superman : Dawn of Justice here.
