(Image: Warner Bros. Pictures)
Following the premiere of his new film, "The Last Photograph," at the Toronto International Film Festival, "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" director Zack Snyder was immediately slammed by a wave of negative reviews from media and critics.
Snyder quickly responded to the criticism in an interview with Variety magazine: "Yeah. I woke up this morning and turned on my X feed, and the debate was raging. It felt like a war had broken out. On one hand, I don't want to say it's cool, but in a way, it kind of is, and I don't know why. The intensity and the vitriol are just incredible. They're saying, 'I want to kill Zack Snyder.' 'Zack Snyder is a fascist.' 'Zack Snyder is homophobic.' 'Zack Snyder is bisexual.'"
The most prevalent criticism was that the depiction of violence against women in "The Last Photograph" was so extreme it bordered on misogyny. Snyder addressed this, explaining, "I don't know what to say. First of all, I think the violence in the film is equal opportunity against women and men. No one is spared—men, women, children, everyone suffers. The path of justice shown in the movie is like a hurricane tearing through, and trying to explain it morally or give violence some meaning—when the point of violence is that it doesn't work—doesn't explain anything."
(Image: IMDb)
Snyder continued, "Those people went to see my movie with 100% bias. There were only 1,200 people in the theater, but there are tens of thousands of posts online! I saw one where someone cut a video and said, 'I haven't seen it, but I'm sure it sucks.' Listen: I don't want to comment on whether you like the movie or not, but in my opinion, it's way easier to get attention by saying, 'I hate Zack Snyder! He's a fascist!' than by saying, 'I saw the movie, and it was pretty good.' Nobody pays attention to that kind of post. And obviously, I'm not a fascist."
(Image: Warner Bros. Pictures)
Snyder recalled, "The exact same thing happened when we screened '300' at the Berlin Film Festival. After the movie, a heated debate erupted immediately. Everyone was booing, people walked out. It was the first time we had shown the film, and we were all stunned. They called it 'a disaster,' 'the worst movie ever made,' and 'a fascist film.' Then we had a press conference, and they asked me a lot of questions, like, 'Are you a fascist filmmaker?'"
(Image: Warner Bros. Pictures)
During the interview, Snyder was inevitably asked again about the behind-the-scenes turmoil on "Justice League." Snyder questioned whether Warner Bros. Pictures had seized the opportunity of his departure—following the tragic death of his daughter by suicide—to take control of the film, rewriting and reshooting more than half of its content. "I ran into a Warner Bros. executive who has been gone for a long time now—I won't say who—and he told me, 'Zack, I have to tell you something: you were right about everything.' And I replied, 'That's very kind of you.' He then said, 'We were always arguing about you, but it turned out you were right.'"
(Image: Warner Bros. Pictures)
Snyder added, "What they were arguing about was the vision for the entire DC universe, the way I make movies, things like that. They were trying to take control—I'm talking about the regime that once was, that's no longer there. They have this massive, incredibly valuable IP, and I can understand them wanting to protect it with all their might. It's their livelihood, after all, and they handed this IP over to a madman, or at least that's how they saw it. Anyway, the idea in the minds of some people at Warner Bros. was—and this is going to sound cold-blooded—they just felt, 'What happened to Zack gives us an opportunity to regain control of this movie.'"
Just a few days ago, Snyder mentioned he hadn't had time to watch the new "Superman," but this time he elaborated, saying he wasn't mentally ready to watch it yet. "I haven't seen the new batch of those films. For me, it's a bit too personal, or you could say, it's too soon to watch. But I do admire James Gunn and I admire his creative vision."
(Image: Warner Bros. Pictures)
Snyder also confirmed that the new "Superman" director, James Gunn, did ask for his opinion on whether Superman's trunks should be worn on the outside, a look Snyder still opposes.
Snyder explained, "He did ask me a question about the trunks. I don't remember the exact question now, but I think it was about the trunks. Sorry, I'm about to go on a rant here. Take 'Watchmen,' which I directed, for example. It's a deconstruction of superheroes, deconstructing neuroses, sexual repression expressed through costumes, fetishism, and so on. You can't go against those established ideas; that's always my line of thinking. So, the tradition of wearing trunks on the outside of a superhero costume comes from Victorian strongmen. Victorians were very conservative; they would wear flesh-colored tights and then wear trunks over them. That's the origin of this custom. It actually reflects the Victorian reluctance to show real skin due to a fear of nudity. So, in my opinion, the trunks-on-the-outside look is just too old-fashioned. We don't think that way anymore. We live in an era where it's okay not to wear trunks on the outside. But maybe we haven't changed at all, haha! Perhaps the message of wearing the trunks is that you should have Superman wear them because we haven't moved past Victorian conservative ideas. But I thought we had!"
Gunn has explained that he was also originally against the trunks-on-the-outside look until the current Superman actor, David Corenswet, told him that Superman wouldn't want children to be afraid of his immense alien power, so he would dress as approachably as possible. Gunn was ultimately convinced and came to believe that we shouldn't pretend Superman's look is serious; part of his essence is that the costume is supposed to be a bit silly.
via： Variety