Zack says if he could adapt a revered Batman graphic novel, he’d return to DC
Zack Snyder, famously known for the SnyderVerse and the remarkable 4-hour Snyder’s Justice League, revealed some wonderful news in an interview with Variety.
Zack Snyder would love to adapt The Dark Knight Returns on the big screen. In the interview, he confirmed that he would like to adapt Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns in live-action.
The Dark Knight Returns TPB consists of four issues, published by DC Comics in 1986. Considered by many to be the perfect Batman comic after all these years. In these 40 years, it has been adapted into a two-part animated film series.
The first instalment was released in 2012, with the sequel in 2013. Peter Weller, Ariel Winter, Michael Emerson, Wade Williams, and Mark Valley voiced Batman, Robin, the Joker, Two-Face, and Superman, respectively. The adaptation was faithful to the source material, winning more hearts and fans.
The story is set in a grim and dark future, where an aging Bruce Wayne retired as Batman for about a decade. The crime rate rises, and this coerces Bruce to don the mask once again. And very soon, a teenage girl, Carrie Kelley, joins him, taking on the Robin alter ego. Together they confront a violent gang called the Mutants along with some of his old foes: Two-Face and the Joker.
Zack Snyder released major DC flicks in the superhero genre. Now focusing on non-superhero kinds, Zack has shown an interest to non-superhero kinds. He considers The Dark Knight Returns as his dream project, and this is a perfect time to have a perfect bookend to the all-superhero era he started with Watchmen in 2009.
Zack had stated that:
The reason why it’s “The Dark Knight Returns,” if anyone would ever let me do it outside of the DC Universe since it’s a novel that just happens to have superheroes in it, is if I could do “Watchmen” and “Dark Knight Returns,” those two books next to each other, to me, represent the complete cycle of the superhero comic book medium. You can do no more than those two books. “Watchmen” came at the beginning of the superhero movie phase, so it would be super fitting to have “The Dark Knight Returns” come now, at what I would say is possibly — I don’t want to call it the twilight, but we’re down the road of the superhero movie genre, and I think audiences would understand the why of it. Let’s not forget: “The Dark Knight Returns” was written for a comic book audience that was very exhausted by comic books in the same way that “Watchmen” was, so having that movie written now for people who are exhausted by comic book movies would be a good time.
Zack considers Joss Whedon’s version canon, though there could be a chance for an animated sequel or comic book adaptation of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, but who knows, as SnyderVerse fans wait in hope. Zack Snyder repeatedly confirmed that he had not seen Joss Whedon’s theatrical version of Justice League (2017) though it was released under his name after being substantially rewritten and reshot. “You can never see that movie,” said Zack’s wife and producing partner, Deborah Snyder, who had watched it before release and had said it, feeling Joss’ version would upset him.
Currently, Zack is busy with his latest movie, The Last Photograph, at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on 13th Sept.
Pic Credits: CBR/VF
