Photo Credit: Clay Enos/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Zack Snyder has opened up about his interest in making a Batman movie. The filmmaker revealed what it would take for him to return to the superhero genre.
In a recent interview with Variety, the 60-year-old talked about adapting Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and why that’s the only way he would consider making another superhero movie.
He shared, “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.”
Snyder added, “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.”
Why Snyder thinks superhero audiences are ready for something different
Zack Snyder went on to point out that Frank Miller’s 1986 four-issue series The Dark Knight Returns arrived at a time when comic book fans were looking for novelty. Hence, adapting that iconic work into a movie now would resonate similarly with a new generation of audiences.
“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,” Snyder said. “So, having that movie written now for people who are exhausted by comic book movies would be a good time.”
Snyder’s last DC Comics adaptation was Justice League. His previous DC projects include Watchmen, Man of Steel, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. In addition, he produced Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and more.
Zack Snyder’s most recent directorial work is the 2026 war thriller The Last Photograph.
