It’s always fun to hear your favorite filmmakers talk about the nitty-gritty details of your favorite film. And if you are a fan of the superhero genre, you certainly cannot help yourself from wondering what went through Zack Snyder’s mind when he was making Ben Affleck’s Justice League. In an interview with the Russo Brothers, the filmmaker talked about everything from his vision to his process regarding his version of Justice League.
During the conversation, Zack Snyder mentioned the one scene he badly wanted to incorporate in his film – the Knightmare sequence where Darkseid had destroyed Earth. He talked about how he and Chris Terrio made his dream come true and what went on behind the scenes.
Zack Snyder Talks about Ben Affleck’s Post-Apocalyptic Scene in ‘Justice League’
While superheroes crossover all the time in the fictional world, the Russo Brothers and Zack Snyder had a crossover in real life when the latter joined the former for their Pizza Film School podcast. During the interview, the renowned filmmakers discussed in detail their processes and how they write scripts.
When it came to Snyder talking about the script of Justice League, he revealed that he worked with Chris Terrio to bring a dream sequence to life.
Snyder stated,
I was really adamant about you know post-apocalyptic or any of that stuff or I was really like I really want to do this.
He then talked about the Knightmare sequence in the film where Ben Affleck‘s Batman has formed a team with Cyborg, Flash, Mera, Deathstroke, and the Joker to stop Superman. Snyder also revealed that Mel Gibson’s 1981 film The Road Warrior influenced the post-apocalyptic Knightmare scene. He continued that this was something that was a “big thing” for him, and he really wanted to turn it into a reality. He added,
When Darkseid destroys Earth, we’re going to have 10 years of no Earth, so we should figure out what Batman’s doing — yeah, you know in the Road Warrior Earth, what is Batman in Road Warrior? So that was kind of like a big thing to me, that was the thing I really wanted to get to.
So Chris and I worked really diligently, and then the document that we – and it wasn’t a secret document – but it was kind of our own. There was a lot of it that we constantly were developing and then right near the end of finishing Batman vs Superman when I was the editing, the responsibilities kind of just diminished a little bit, we really started working on Justice League.
Out of the two versions of Justice League, the unanimous decision is that Snyder’s iteration was much better thanks to its dark themes. It was quite enlightening to hear what the filmmaker had to say about his process and the work he put into the story with Terrio.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League was Supposed to be Darker
While Snyder’s version of Justice League was much darker than Joss Whedon’s, the filmmaker revealed in the podcast that the original script was even darker and weirder.
He told the Russo Brothers that his original script for the film wasn’t funny enough for Warner Bros., especially after seeing the divisive response to Batman v Superman.
Therefore, Snyder went back and lightened Justice League up a bit to adhere to the studio’s demands. He stated,
Now, I’ll be honest that when the script… what happened with Justice League is we had a very… the original script was much darker and weirder, and then when Batman vs Superman came out and the studio was like ‘It’s not funny enough, people want funnier movies they want funny stuff in it’…
…We did go back and do a big kind of lightened the movie overall, and I would say that Justice League, my kind of Justice League, is sort of in between that.
Snyder’s version of Justice League represents a compromise between his original dark and complex vision and Warner Bros.’s demand for a lighter, more humorous tone. Would you have preferred that Snyder got to keep the original tone?
Stream Zack Snyder’s Justice League on Max.
