He hasn’t tussled with the Caped Crusader since the DC Universe changed hands, but Zack Snyder believes there’s no better time for him to return to the Batcave and give his adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns. Following the premiere of his new film The Last Photograph (which critics eviscerated at TIFF) the director, who has a long and fraught history with the DCU, explained why Frank Miller’s graphic novel is the only story he’d want to go back to.
“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 The Dark Knight Returns, those two books next to each other, to me, represent the complete cycle of the superhero comic book medium,” Snyder told Variety.
“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.”
Snyder’s love of the 1986 tale was apparent in Batman v Superman, which not only took story elements from Miller’s book but also key frames for its visuals. Regardless of where you might stand on the director’s work, he’s always had a knack for perfectly replicating some key sequences from the comic book stories he’s adapted, including 300 and Watchmen. In his eyes, though, he feels the time of heroes and villains might be at an end, and a final bout with Batman is what he’s hungry for.
“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, so having that movie written now for people who are exhausted by comic book movies would be a good time,” he added to Variety.
Whether audiences are really exhausted with comic book movies is up for debate, particularly given that the biggest film of the year is Spider-Man: Brand New Day. That’s even before Avengers: Doomsday makes its arrival on December 18, which is guaranteed to make a few pennies, at least.
As for Batman, the only version we’ll see soon is the one that brings Robert Pattinson back in The Batman 2, hitting theaters on February 18, 2028. Check out all the other upcoming superhero movies you need to know about.