Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I hope you're reading this after checking out my big-ass set report from Justice League. If not, some of this might be confusing for you, but the short version is that I got to tag along with a few fellow bloggers to the set of Justice League. While on that visit I was present for a chat with director Zack Snyder.
He was sipping a mojito at the time and had just shown us a lighter, funnier scene of Bruce Wayne recruiting The Flash. Like I said, go read the big story to get filled in everything. Did you do it? Good. Here's the chat now that you're all caught up.
Question: That was a funny scene. Is that why you showed it to us?
Zack Snyder: Also because it's one of the first scenes we have done! But I do think it shows a lot of what Ezra brings to the movie. Batman's Batman. I think Bruce Wayne has this kind of Batman humor. It's not the same. When I saw the scene, we just cut it together the other day, I thought it was fun. It was a way of understanding how the movies have gone in a progression. By no means is this the whole movie. There's parts of the movie, of course, where they're facing enemies... look at the Batmobile, for God's sake. They're going to be drawn into conflict.
But I think the Magnificent Seven aspect of the movie, the team-building part of the movie... and you know I'm a fan of Magnificent Seven and those kind of team-making movies, so it's fun for me to finally get to this point now in the progression of these movies where we are building the team and making the Justice League.
Batman V Superman to me was, from conception, from the beginning, was like “Oh, let's get Batman in the movie.” I've talked to you guys about why we got Batman in the movie... It began as “Who is (Superman) going to fight? He fought Zod, an alien. Who does he fight next? What do you do?”
I was with Chris Nolan and we were talking and the first idea was “We should show kryptonite being delivered to Bruce Wayne's house at the end of the movie.” Once we said in the room “Okay, it's Batman. He's going to fight Batman,” it's kinda hard to take that away. Once you say Batman out loud, it's going to be Batman.
Question: I haven't seen anything so far with Jesse Eisenberg. Any chance that he's back for this, that he's a presence?
Zack Snyder: That's a little bit of a spoiler, but Jesse's amazing and hilarious and fun. He's in prison, so who knows? In the comic book world, prisons are pretty porous places.
Question: When you started BvS, obviously Justice League was coming and you had a whole slate of movies that were coming, so there was a vision you had for the whole thing, but you also have to pay attention to the audience reaction.
Zack Snyder: Yeah, yeah.
Question: So how does the audience reaction and the critical reaction to BvS inform you guys as you come to this film?
Zack Snyder: Listen, if it's about putting more fun in the movie... I think it's in all the characters inherently, this larger than life big fun stuff, especially when you're dealing with the Justice League. I don't have a scene with Mamoa (to show you), but I've been now with Jason and the contrast with Ben and Gal is just really fun.
Just to finish my idea, but what I was going to say about the Batman V Superman concept is you have to remember the whole threat of that was to draw those two into conflict. I felt like they were both evolving, in my mind. I think Superman was on his way to something. I wanted to get to Superman who had a reason for being Superman, that he'd be like we understand from the comic books, as far as his moral compass goes. I'm not saying that he shows up in this movie, but... (laughs)
Question: Well, you very consciously end BvS with the dirt moving.
Zack Snyder: Yes, very consciously.
Question: But he's been absent today, so what can you tell us?
Zack Snyder: There's a process, clearly, that would have to go on...
Question: How's his hair when he comes back?
Zack Snyder: (laughs) It should be perfect. A little longer, I guess. That's what the myths are, anyway.
Question: Is he not supposed to be part of it at this stage?
Zack Snyder: That'd be part of the story... if he does appear. That'd be a big part of the story, right? How do you get him back?
Question: Will there be any clue to how Superman might come back in the extended cut of Batman V Superman?
Zack Snyder: I'm just trying to comb through it in my mind. It's been a while since I've seen it... I don't know if there's anything directly related to that concept, but I think there's other stuff... Well, you'll see. It's coming any second. It actually got leaked a little bit and sort of came and went.
But the idea of drawing Superman and Batman into conflict meant that you really had to dig down into the darker parts of them to make them fight each other. I really do believe that with this movie, with Justice League, they've been freed of the shackles of having to be in a place where they would fight each other. I think that that is liberating for us in some ways in making the movie because really now we have a single enemy with a single objective and it's really about uniting the team.
Question: Have you had all the Justice League members on set at the same time?
Zack Snyder: We've had almost all of them.
Question: What was it like?
Zack Snyder: It was super cool. It was really fun. We had a big sequence where they had to kind of like “make the plan.” I won't say what it was, but it was pretty fun.
Question: Is the second Justice League movie still tethered to this and if so is it something you still plan to direct?
Zack Snyder: We still have a release date...
Question: But this isn't Justice League: Part 1, though. You're not looking at it as a Part One?
Zack Snyder: Oh, it is a complete movie. I mean, the movie won't end and you'll go “Well, that's the DC Universe all done.”
Question: There's always extraordinary pressure making this kind of movie, but there are reports that you may be under more corporate pressure than usual. Has this been a more difficult shoot for you?
Zack Snyder: I don't think so. I would just say that for me Batman V Superman... I think there is a slight misconception about the shooting, about how much pressure was on us and how much pressure was on the movie to perform in a certain way. From my point of view, and maybe because I don't know how to do it any other way, but we make personal movies. For me, I love the characters I love and the comic books and maybe to a fault sometimes I dork out on the sort of hardcore aspects of the comic books. I have had a great time making the movie and I don't think Warner Bros while we were shooting the movie... I mean, there wasn't some sort of corporate mandate to get Batman and Superman in the movie.
Chris and I had that idea and it just so happened that was a way toward Justice League. It came along at a great time for us as the studio was moving forward with other DC titles and getting the DCEU to exist, but I don't think the birth of Batman V Superman was some corporate conspiracy to sell tickets. I think it just became this great vehicle that had a lot of focus put on it because of where it ended up in the timeline.
The studio has been amazing with me. They are a filmmaker-driven studio. They don't really do a ton of things by committee, at least that's the experience I've had with them.
It's been amazingly rewarding working with these characters because I do love the material. For me, it really is a personal movie and when Batman V Superman came out I was like “Wow, okay. Woof...” It did catch me off-guard. I have had to, in my mind, make an adjustment. Maybe it is my sort of hardcore take on the characters in so far as that I love them and I love the material, so I do. I take it really deep.
The nice things about now working on Justice League is it is an opportunity to really blow the doors off with the scale and the bad guys and the team building and all the stuff that I think I can justify as belonging in a big, modern comic book movie, if that makes any sense.
Question: Would you still use the word “hardcore” to describe this movie?
Zack Snyder: When I say “hardcore” I mean canon hardcore. We've treated these characters, especially now that we've evolved them into a team... I think we've pushed them a lot more toward what I would consider the more sort of iconic (versions of themselves). Frankly, that's what the evolution was.
Not to give anything away or be too telling about what we're doing with the movie, but death is definitely darker than resurrection or team-building. It's just a darker concept. When you're dealing with The Dark Knight (Returns) or The Death of Superman, those kind of ideas, as opposed to “let's build a team and go fight a bad guy!” It's just a different kind of energy.
Question: So, you're constantly changing tone this time?
Zack Snyder: Yeah, look. I'm obsessed with tone in my movies. Tone has always been the main thing that I go after with a movie and I really wanted the tone in the three movies to be different chapters and not be the same note that you strike and you're like “okay, there's that again.” I do believe that since Batman V Superman came out and we've wrapped our heads around what Justice League would be, I do think that because what the fans have said and how the movie was sort of received by some we have really put the screws to what we thought the tone would be and I feel like we really crushed it even that a little bit further.
Question: Is it closer to Dawn of the Dead?
Zack Snyder: No, no. I love Dawn, but I think the tone is hardcore satire. Not that I don't take Romero super seriously or zombie movies super seriously, because I do, but I probably have more reverence toward this kind of material than I do a zombie film.
Question: (Couldn't quite catch this one, but it was about Batman's tone as a character)
Zack Snyder: When we were making of Batman V Superman, and I talked with Ben about it, but it was like “How could we not be stuck with a single note Batman for three movies? What do we do?” We talked long and hard about (where he is during Batman V Superman). He's at the end of his career and he's down here and seen this thing that makes him wonder what his relevance is, but the example of Superman makes him go “No, I'm not done. I've got more to do. I've got to persevere and make it right.” That's the Batman you get now at the beginning of Justice League. He's on a mission and he's really clear-headed about the mission and the others he'll need to complete it.
Question: Can you talk about working with Geoff Johns?
Zack Snyder: Oh yeah. Geoff and I have had a great working relationship, even on Batman V Superman and on Wonder Woman we worked together really closely and we have a project coming up we want to do together... (the publicist warns him that he can't talk about that yet). Oh, I can't talk about that. (laughs)
His knowledge of comics is crazy. He's like an encyclopedia of comics. He's really amazing with just keeping everything in canon. I'll be like “it's back in...” like he's looking in an archive.
Question: I get that this film will be a little more fun and funnier, but one of the things that I love about Man of Steel is the crazy and weird opening on Krypton and it looks like you're going back to some of the weird stuff with the Motherboxes and Parademons and stuff...
Zack Snyder: Kirby's crazy and great. There's a lot of influence from the New Gods stuff. We were digging on that. That's the Motherboxes and the Apokoliptic world and stuff. You can't really do that stuff without some... I don't know if I'd call it weird, but larger than life sci-fi cool stuff. Also, you need a bad guy that would justify the Justice League (to exist). You've got to have a good threat that's fun and kind of crazy. And the Motherboxes are fun DC weird tech.
Question: The scene with Steppenwolf was put up the Monday after release. Did you put it on the internet to sort of sow the seeds of Justice League? Most of us are used to getting deleted scenes on a Blu-Ray, not immediately after the film hits theaters.
Zack Snyder: I kinda thought that'd be a cool after-credits sequence, but I was like “Can I do that? Marvel does that. Is that a thing?” We thought maybe there was another way to do it.
That's the chat. You can tell he was a little defensive, but there was also an eagerness in his tone that I hope conveyed as well. He really did want to create the impression that the versions of your favorite heroes you've seen are in motion and meant to end up as you know and love them. Still can't tell if that's spin or not, but it felt genuine to me.
Thoughts?
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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