The director of 'Batman v Superman' admits negative feedback from fans changed his approach to the upcoming sequel 'Justice League'
Henry Romero/Reuters
In a recent chat with film critics on the set of his upcoming "Justice League" film, director Zack Snyder discussed the negative backlash toward his 2015 film "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice," admitting that he even incorporated fan responses into the production and changed the tone of the movie's sequel, "Justice League," which is due for release in November 2017.
"When 'Batman v Superman' came out, I was like, ‘Wow, okay, oof," Snyder admitted to Vulture, concerning the near-universal critical panning of his film.
"It did catch me off guard," he continued. "I have had to, in my mind, make an adjustment. I do think that the tone of 'Justice League' has changed because of what the fans have said."
Where critics found "Batman v Superman" to be "joyless," plagued by a lack of "humor or self-deprecation" and the apparent result of the superhero-movie model's "creative exhaustion," Snyder maintains that the grimness of his film originated from a deeply probing study of the character's "darker" instincts, which he says was a requirement if the heroes were to fight each other.
As for where he plans to take "Justice League" in light of the unfavorable response to the gloominess of "Batman v Superman," Snyder suggested that having his characters fight a common enemy — in the fashion of Marvel's "Avengers" films — will ultimately bring his new film out of the darkness, so to speak.
"I really do believe that with this movie, with 'Justice League,' they’ve been freed of the responsibility to be in a place where they would fight each other," Snyder said. "That’s liberating for us in making the movie, because now we have a single enemy with a single objective, and it’s really about uniting the team. That, to me, is a fun activity.”