Director Zack Snyder Disses DC Comics And Warner Bros. Praises Marvel Studios While Promoting His ‘Justice League’ Cut

Savas Abadsidis March 15, 2021

In what appeared to be a thinly veiled dis at Warner Bros. and DC Comics while promoting the release of his edit of Justice League, which premiers March 18 on HBO Max, director Zack Snyder said, “They’re doing, at the highest level, this popular action-comedy with a heart. And they have that nailed.”

#DC director #ZackSnyder has offered high praise for @MarvelStudios and the #MCU: “They’re doing, at the highest level, this popular action-comedy with a heart. And they have that nailed.” Full quote: https://t.co/w9b8Gfzzzr pic.twitter.com/AcBZC9vK6D
— MCU – The Direct (@MCU_Direct) March 14, 2021

According to The Direct: Snyder has already discussed in length how he differentiates both the DC and Marvel universes. He has even praised the extensive work that has been done by Marvel Studios over the years as it built up its universe. However, Snyder said that DC should attempt to try being like them due to Marvel having such a huge head start building their universe, but also because of Warner Bros. having multiple television shows based on DC heroes still going, too.

Credit: Maggie Shannon for The New York Times

In a new interview, Snyder was asked again about Marvel and gave praise to its films, but also addressed why he’ll never make movies like them.

You’re invited to the official Red Carpet Event of #zacksnydersjusticeleague March 17th, 8PM PST. Watch the event live on the official #SnyderCut Facebook, Twitter or the @HBOMax and @DCComics YouTube channels. pic.twitter.com/F6oyUn3Tij
— Zack Snyder (@ZackSnyder) March 12, 2021

Speaking with The New York Times while promoting his upcoming cut of Justice League, director Zack Snyder was asked about superhero competitor Marvel Studios and if it had any effect on his DC movies.

To most filmgoers, “Justice League” is just another misbegotten comic-book adaptation that came and went in 2017 — one in which DC heroes like Batman (Ben Affleck), Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) and Aquaman (Jason Momoa) united to battle an intergalactic foe.

But to genre fans, “Justice League” is laden with notorious history: the director Zack Snyder exited the project during postproduction, leaving it to be completed by Joss Whedon (“The Avengers”), who had come on to help rewrite it. The result was an unsatisfying attempt by Warner Bros. to kick-start its own Marvel-style franchise.

Snyder occupies a singular space in the blockbuster business. After breakthrough films like “Dawn of the Dead” (2004) and “300” (2007), he has been both praised and pilloried for unapologetically bombastic superhero opuses like “Watchmen” (2009), “Man of Steel” (2013) and “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” — his big, brutal dust-up between those two characters, which grossed $873 million worldwide in 2016 yet still ended up a critical and commercial disappointment.

The making of “Justice League” coincided with a tragic period in Snyder’s life; his daughter Autumn died by suicide in March 2017, and his family was mourning her while he tried to finish the film.

When asked whether Snyder had intentionally framed the DC heroes as grander and more epic to contrast from how Marvel portrayed its heroes, Snyder said that when they were making Man of Steel, he knew that “Marvel is doing something else:”

New York Times

Although Snyder ended his answer by stating “Frankly, I was the only one saying that.”

When pressed further, Snyder was asked whether he would want to make more movies like Marvel Studios but denied such a suggestion:

“No, not at all. I don’t know how to hit a ball any different than I hit it. A director has one skill — your point of view. That’s all you have. If you’re trying to imitate another way of making a movie, then you’re on a slippery slope.”

Executives at Warner Bros. have learned some lessons from all of this for their future projects. Hopefully, they won’t be trying to play catch up with Marvel Studios or replicate their current tone of films, which, as Snyder said, is “An effort to duplicate that is insanity because they’re so good at it.”