It's easy to blame Zack Snyder for the initial failure of the DC Extended Universe. He has an insanely distinct visual style, and it's hard to see how Man of Steel is anything but pure Snyder. But at a certain point, I think it's necessary to differentiate between what Snyder was trying to do and what the final product looked like after Warner Bros. had their say.
After the success of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, was any moviegoer going to turn down a dark, hyper-stylized Superman movie? No, but it just got a little rocky along the way. Was it a bad decision on the studio's part to turn a potential Man of Steel sequel into a feature-length preview for Justice League? Without a doubt, but that doesn't mean a brazenly political superhero saga doesn't have its merits. And yes, it was an even more egregious decision to turn 2017's Justice League into a film divided by the sensibilities of Snyder and Joss Whedon, but the ultimate disaster was the fault of a room full of studio executives. That trilogy was a sometimes fascinating, sometimes nightmarish mess; none of the blame deserves to be put on a single filmmaker.
All of this to say- I'm very, very curious to see Zack Snyder's next project.
And it looks like we'll be seeing it sooner than expected. In an exclusive from The Hollywood Reporter, we learned yesterday that Snyder will be moving from Warner Bros. to Netflix to direct Army of the Dead, a zombie epic that follows a team in Las Vegas hellbent on pulling off a daring heist during the middle of the zombie apocalypse. The project was also set up at Warner Bros. before Netflix decided to take it over; the script was originally written by Joby Harold (in an article over at The Playlist, it's confirmed that the script has since been re-written). Snyder and his wife, Deborah, will be producing under their Stone Quarry banner, with Wesley Coller on board as a producer as well. The film will reportedly shoot this summer with a budget in the range of $90 million. This means, presumably, that Snyder's latest will be ready for a late 2020 release.
Here's what the 300 director had to say about his new project:
"There are no handcuffs on me at all with this one... I thought this was a good palate cleanser to really dig in with both hands and make something fun and epic and crazy and bonkers in the best possible way... I love to honor canon and the works of art, but this is the opportunity to find a purely joyful way to express myself through a genre. It will be the most kick-ass, self aware- but not in a wink-to-the-camera way- balls-to-the-wall zombie freakshow that anyone has ever seen."
You can read more of Snyder's quotes in the full THR piece, but the message is clear: we're about to see Snyder in a whole new way. The filmmaker suffered a great personal loss in 2017, so it's encouraging to hear that he's returning to movies and to the genre that launched his career. And while I would certainly be excited about such a high-concept project regardless of who decided to get behind the camera, Snyder's involvement promises a stunning visual extravaganza beyond the likes of anything we've seen recently from the zombie genre. I'm pumped.
Look for more on Army of the Dead in the near future.
Images: Warner Bros./Universal/IMDb
After the success of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, was any moviegoer going to turn down a dark, hyper-stylized Superman movie? No, but it just got a little rocky along the way. Was it a bad decision on the studio's part to turn a potential Man of Steel sequel into a feature-length preview for Justice League? Without a doubt, but that doesn't mean a brazenly political superhero saga doesn't have its merits. And yes, it was an even more egregious decision to turn 2017's Justice League into a film divided by the sensibilities of Snyder and Joss Whedon, but the ultimate disaster was the fault of a room full of studio executives. That trilogy was a sometimes fascinating, sometimes nightmarish mess; none of the blame deserves to be put on a single filmmaker.
All of this to say- I'm very, very curious to see Zack Snyder's next project.
And it looks like we'll be seeing it sooner than expected. In an exclusive from The Hollywood Reporter, we learned yesterday that Snyder will be moving from Warner Bros. to Netflix to direct Army of the Dead, a zombie epic that follows a team in Las Vegas hellbent on pulling off a daring heist during the middle of the zombie apocalypse. The project was also set up at Warner Bros. before Netflix decided to take it over; the script was originally written by Joby Harold (in an article over at The Playlist, it's confirmed that the script has since been re-written). Snyder and his wife, Deborah, will be producing under their Stone Quarry banner, with Wesley Coller on board as a producer as well. The film will reportedly shoot this summer with a budget in the range of $90 million. This means, presumably, that Snyder's latest will be ready for a late 2020 release.
Here's what the 300 director had to say about his new project:
"There are no handcuffs on me at all with this one... I thought this was a good palate cleanser to really dig in with both hands and make something fun and epic and crazy and bonkers in the best possible way... I love to honor canon and the works of art, but this is the opportunity to find a purely joyful way to express myself through a genre. It will be the most kick-ass, self aware- but not in a wink-to-the-camera way- balls-to-the-wall zombie freakshow that anyone has ever seen."
You can read more of Snyder's quotes in the full THR piece, but the message is clear: we're about to see Snyder in a whole new way. The filmmaker suffered a great personal loss in 2017, so it's encouraging to hear that he's returning to movies and to the genre that launched his career. And while I would certainly be excited about such a high-concept project regardless of who decided to get behind the camera, Snyder's involvement promises a stunning visual extravaganza beyond the likes of anything we've seen recently from the zombie genre. I'm pumped.
Look for more on Army of the Dead in the near future.
Images: Warner Bros./Universal/IMDb
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