Zack Snyder’s films may have not found their place in the stars but he has definitely earned his place in the hearts of fans that are hardcore believers in his ‘dark and adult’ directorial take on characters. Starting his career with the remake of the 1978 classic zombie flick Dawn of the Dead, he worked his way up to bagging DC’s Man of Steel. We’ve all witnessed his journey since then.
Prior to his time with the DCEU, he delivered films like 300 and Watchmen that could not get into the good graces of the critics but fans loved them nonetheless. Oh, and don’t even talk about Sucker Punch !!
His vision for the DC universe began with Man of Steel in 2013 and expanded the story with 2016’s Batman v Superman. It was the latter that earned him all the smoke in Hollywood, but also his cult-like fanbase. Both the films had their moments in the sun with the characters being immensely comic-accurate, but there is no denying the fact that his ‘dark’ storytelling crumbled his vision for the franchise.
Zack Snyder’s BvS Trashed By Fans For Being ‘Too Dark’
At a time when Marvel Studios took the comic-book film adaptation to the next level with their interconnected storytelling, Zack Snyder’s vision had just started out. He wanted his story to cook slowly but he ended up diving into the depths of darkness with the story and characters’ emotions only to show how ‘human’ they all were behind their ‘God-like’ personas.
BvS ended up being trashed by fans front, right, and center for its ‘heavily layered’ storytelling. The theatrical cut of the film got almost 30 minutes of scenes removed to make the film shorter. But that only made things worse as fans couldn’t connect the dots.
WB later pushed out the ‘Ultimate Edition’ cut of the film that was nearly 3 hours long and had the removed footage. But it had been too late by then.
Maybe Not A Critical One, but BvS Was A Commercial Success
Inspired by Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Ben Affleck as the caped crusader did a fantastic job at portraying the character, but received mixed reviews from the fans with the majority appreciating his take.
Even after all that criticism and a 29% critic score on rotten tomatoes, it went on to bag $873 million at the box office and was a commercial success, if not so much critically.
In a Full Circle charity event, Zack Snyder called out DC fans saying –
“I think, and maybe I’m wrong. But I feel like a lot of people went into the movies for going like, ‘Oh, it’s the superhero romp, right? Let’s have fun with it, and ‘Why do they fight at night?’”
He later said that people need to pay attention to what his films are trying to communicate to the audience and that is the key to understanding such a ‘modern’ take on these ‘mythological’ superheroes.
All eyes are on his next film, a galactic adventure Rebel Moon set for release on December 22, 2023.
Source: The Direct
