Zack Snyder's future at Warner Bros.' DC movies: Limited at best, dunzo at worst

Zack Snyder, primary engineer of the DC Comics movie universe since Man of Steel, whose creative vision has been polarizing to say the least, will take a significantly smaller role with the franchise going forward, as will his wife, producer Deborah Snyder, Mashable has learned.

The Snyders left Justice League as director and producer in May, saying they needed time to grieve for their 20-year-old daughter, who had died by suicide two months before. Multiple sources with knowledge of Warner Bros.' plans say that as the DC Extended Universe moves forward, the Snyders will no longer have anything like the level of creative influence that got the franchise to this point.

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For its part, Warners strongly denied the notion that the Snyders would no longer be actively involved in creative decision-making. Toby Emmerich, Warner Bros. Pictures Group president and chief content officer, said in a statement that the Snyders would maintain a role:

Indeed, Zack and Deborah will be getting respective directing and producing credits on Justice League — they oversaw the bulk of production after all — and it's still possible that they'll carry executive producer or other types of credits for future DC films. But that involvement will be at a distance, multiple sources say, and for the time being the two are spending time with family while figuring out their next move, which is understood to include Warner Bros. films not within the DCEU.

While the Snyders' phasing out may not come entirely as a surprse, it's sure to send a shockwave through DC fandom, which fiercely supported Snyders' films in the face of harsh critical reception. And struggles with the Snyders were not entirely due to the increasingly hostile critical reactions to their films — Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad in particular: Warner Bros. brass was becoming increasingly concerned with their tendency to drive up budgets, and have been anxious for a freshened creative direction that manifested in Wonder Woman, on which the Snyders were producers. 

Zack Snyder had been heavily involved in all of DC's movies to-date; he directed Man of Steel and Batman v Superman and was an executive producer on Suicide Squad. And future films like Aquaman, Suicide Squad 2 and The Flash: Flashpoint still carry his name in producing roles.

His creative imprint — a dark, metallic visual style and grim, brooding, muscular-emo sensibility — were all over the DCEU, and will surely linger into future films. But the post-Snyders regime is widely expected to take the films in a more hopeful, colorful, comic-book inflected direction — like what we saw work so well with Wonder Woman.

Image: VALERIE MACON/AFP/Getty Images

At the forefront of that effort is Geoff Johns, who swiftly ascended from the comic-book world to become president and chief creative officer at Warners' DC division last year, reporting to Diane Nelson, president of DC Entertainment. His close creative partner and secret weapon will be Joss Whedon, who stepped in for the departing Snyders to finish Justice League. As Variety first reported on Monday, extensive re-shoots are under way on that film, and more than the usual regularly scheduled pickup shots; sources confirm that while Snyder's action sequences are useable, a wide swath of story and dialogue are being redone.

Whedon also has Batgirl on the DC slate, which is expected to proceed on schedule. But Whedon — who never quite got the credit he deserved as a key architect of Marvel's cinematic universe alongside Kevin Feige after Avengers: Age of Ultron — will be a major part of WB's creative team in the future.

Image: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

To some, the same can possibly be said for Aquaman director James Wan and Matt Reeves, the War for the Planet of the Apes director who is taking over the directing chair from Ben Affleck on the planned Batman movie. It's early yet, but Reeves' reputation after Apes could not be more sterling, his world-building chops are clearly first rate and the studio will throw its support to him.

Another person whose involvement is now in question: David Ayer, the Suicide Squad helmer, who is still listed as the director of the Harley Quinn-led spinoff Gotham City Sirens. That film was not featured in Warner Bros.' Comic-Con sizzle reel of nine upcoming DC movies last weekend, and sources say Ayer won't ultimately be part of their plans. Ayer's rep flatly denied that he's off the project, saying it's still in development and that the script is not yet complete. 

But there are other signs that he's moving on: Ayer seemed to signal his discontent with his WB/DC experience at his Comic-Con panel on Thursday for Bright, the fantasy buddy-cop film that Netflix gave him $90 million to make.

Image: Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images

"I don't think people realize the situation filmmakers face," he said, stressing that Netflix didn't intervene in his process — they just let him run with it. "[Bright] isn't like, some bullshit standard issue studio PG-13 movie. I was able to do some real shit here," said Ayer, who has directed exactly one PG-13 movie in his career: Suicide Squad.

Patty Jenkins, on the other hand, is definitely in the insiders club — as if there would be any doubt of that, given that Wonder Woman is now the DCEU's most successful film. 

At the very first screening of Wonder Woman for select press, Johns and the WW director held court at a reception that followed; as things wound down and people were leaving, Johns and Jenkins shared a warm embrace and exchanged kind words — they knew they had made something special, and it was clear that its director and DC's new creative honcho are fans of one another. 

Image: Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images

And the timing of changes at Warners' DC division are not entirely coincidental: Kevin Tsujihara, chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. Entertainment, knows he needs to get his studio's most important house in order before parent company Time Warner's impending merger with AT&T. New bosses will want to see more results like Wonder Woman — which is still legging out record-breaking box office on a leaner budget — and less like Batman v Superman, which was a bona fide worldwide hit, but plunged in its ensuing weekends and cost a massive fortune.

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The Snyders are certainly not without their fans. Their exit will be a particular blow to the faction of DC Comics' fandom that supported them fiercely, loyally and vocally against critics — and that includes the people they've worked with. 

One of them, Ray Fisher, who plays Cyborg in Justice League, wore an "I [heart] ZS" (for Zack Snyder) T-shirt to the film's panel at Comic-Con (which Zack Snyder, who is always at Comic-Con championing his films, did not attend).

Image: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

It was — perhaps well-known to Fisher — a final Comic-Con tribute at the end of an era that has defined modern superhero movies, like it or not.

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