It’s no secret that DC and Marvel have taken different approaches to bringing their comic book characters to our screens. The DCEU and the MCU both have vibrant fanbases that are more than happy to discuss the pros and cons of each. Now, Zack Snyder himself has weighed in on why he thinks DC movies wouldn’t work if they went the way of Marvel movies.
Zack Snyder definitely has some history with DC. From Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman to Justice League, his highs and lows with the DCEU have been well documented. He’s also one of the filmmakers who has the best grasp on the approach that Warner Bros. has taken with the DC movies.
In a recent conversation with TheFilmJunkees, Zack Snyder said that DC Movies went through a period where they had to navigate “the middle step” in bringing characters from the page to the screen. These days, though, he thinks they’ve figured out the trajectory pretty well:
I think and I hope the idea is like it’s filmmaker first and then - which is basically what the multiverse allows for. The filmmaker first and then here’s the characters, bringing the characters together.
The multiverse approach is one that Warner Bros. has gradually moved toward as of late when it comes to DC film and TV projects. And as far as Zack Snyder is confirmed, it helps define DC movies in a key way:
It symbolizes a sort-of a way to say like, ‘It’s okay, we’re gonna like have this world where there’s all these storylines going at the same time.' And I always thought that was DC’s strength.
He said that he found the fact that DC movies, TV series, and animated films all happening concurrently was less alienating to their fanbase. Zack Snyder thinks that approach allows fans to see the characters in different ways without having to worry about whether a storyline they liked would “count” later on. The director also thinks that’s one of the essential differences between the DCEU and the MCU:
[Marvel has] built it over a long period of time, so by the time they got to their later movies, everything had kind-of locked in and was kind-of all going in the same direction. But that was just never going to happen because the DC TV shows were so popular, and because their animated films were so popular.things worked out pretty nicely. But other than that I was like, ‘Look, I’m gonna give you an Aquaman, and I’m gonna give you a Flash, deal with them as you please.’
Whether you prefer the DCEU or the MCU approach to storytelling, Zack Snyder definitely makes a compelling case for how the two differ. It will be interesting to see how he expands the Justice League multiverse when we finally get a chance to see the Snyder Cut on HBO Max in 2021.
