A recent social media image of Zack Snyder and James Gunn in DC Studios has sent the internet into a tailspin that Snyder might return to DC to finish his unproduced Justice League sequels, but there could be another DC project that he would be perfect to take on. It’s no secret that the Snyderverse has left an incalculable impact on the DC and superhero movie landscape. The polarized response to but undeniable longevity of Snyder’s Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the epic grassroots campaign for the eventual release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, the unmade chapters in Snyder’s planned story including Ben Affleck’s solo Batman movie and Justice League 2 and Justice League 3, Henry Cavill’s Superman comeback in Black Adam and planned showdown with The Rock’s anti-hero, and the re-routing of DC’s cinematic future with James Gunn’s upcoming DCU and its kick-off movie Superman. All of it still fresh on the minds of fans around the world, and even as the release of Superman nears, the Snyderverse’s shadow and the hopes of seeing its tale told to completion still haven’t vanished from view.
After James Gunn shared a picture with Zack Snyder to social media back in February (with Gunn’s caption stating “Always a pleasure catching up with my friend Zack Snyder, consummate filmmaker (and a doubly consummate storyteller!)”), #RestoreTheSnyderVerse hopes surged into re-energized prominence, as anyone who has followed DC on film in the last half decade (and, for that matter, anyone whose name is James Gunn or Zack Snyder) saw coming 100 miles away. While there is certainly plenty to go there in that one image, what if there were another off-the-wall DC project that Snyder could dive into? One tailor-made for his colorful visual style and approach to epic-scale action? And one that Snyder already seems perfect for after his space-faring, futuristic sci-fi adventure in the Rebel Moon movies? That DC project could be none other than an adaptation of the popular DC animated series Batman Beyond.
Have Zack Snyder & James Gunn Had DC Talks?
While Zack Snyder and DC are essentially inseparable after the former has helmed a Superman movie, a Batman & Superman movie, and the first ever live-action cinematic Justice League film (that had to fight an uphill battle just to see the light of day at all, no less), Snyder once again entered the DC fray after his aforementioned social media picture with Gunn. Though Gunn stated that he and Snyder were simply catching up as friends, it’s quite a lot to buy the notion that the duo didn’t have some kind of discussion about DC on film when Snyder visited DC Studios.
Obviously, that reaction included speculation of Gunn and Snyder having talks to revive Snyder’s planned Justice League sequels, which certainly seems plausible when one looks at the nature of Gunn and Snyder’s photo together. Both Gunn and Snyder are fully aware of the continued enthusiasm around seeing Snyder’s planned Justice League story through, and if Gunn and Warner Bros. Discovery wanted to distance Superman and the DCU from the Snyderverse in order to center all attention on DC towards the former, posting an image of Gunn with Snyder in DC Studios would be a counterproductive move at best.
It is, therefore, entirely reasonable to infer that Gunn and Snyder did indeed have some kind of discussion of Snyder returning into the DC fold, although with that said, that comeback isn’t likely to happen in the immediate future. Snyder has numerous other projects in the works, including his UFC movie Brawler, while Gunn is still in the midst of getting the DCU fully off the ground. Whatever potential discussion Gunn and Snyder had may have been in a similar vein as Gunn’s reported talks with David Ayer about releasing the Ayer Cut of Suicide Squad, with Gunn expressing support for returning to finish off their era of DC on film but also making clear he needs to, in Ayer’s words to THR, “get some scores on the board first” to have any kind of pull to make such a thing happen. While that certainly keeps the #ReleaseTheAyerCut and #RestoreTheSnyderVerse hopes alive, what if Gunn’s meeting with Snyder didn’t strictly entail his unmade Justice League sequels, but something else that could perfectly fit into DC Studios’ Elseworlds’ silo?
Batman Beyond Can’t Work In A Mainline DC Universe, But It Can In DC Elseworlds (& James Gunn Would Surely Be Down For It)
The entire concept of Batman Beyond of an elderly Bruce Wayne passing the mantle of Batman on to a younger successor in a Gotham City several decades in the future doesn’t really fit organically into any kind of present-tense DC Cinematic Universe. By all outward indications, Gunn’s DCU appears to take place in the present day, while the Batman of the DCU will undoubtedly be a present-day Bruce Wayne in the prime of his crime-fighting career. Unless Batman Beyond is conceived as a mainline DCU project to be produced and released at least a decade after Superman gets the DCU rolling, it really doesn’t fit into the DCU framework.
However, DC Elseworlds (a wing of DC movies and shows set outside of the DCU, as specified by Gunn when he boarded as DC Studios Co-CEO) would be the perfect apparatus to support a Batman Beyond project. By its nature, it is removed from the primary DCU in both timeline and production setting, so both could easily co-exist side-by-side. Moreover, Gunn’s own history of making comic book movies shows he’s the exact kind of filmmaker and/or studio executive who would greenlight something like Batman Beyond. Gunn’s Superman film is really the only time he’s tackled a comic book character who was a household name from the outset, and even then, the movie includes numerous B-level DC characters like Metamorpho, Mister Terrific, and Guy Gardner Green Lantern. Everything else Gunn has made in the comic book movie realm – the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, The Suicide Squad, Peacemaker, Creature Commandos – has focused on more off-the-wall and secondary characters. Batman Beyond’s Terry McGinnis fits right into Gunn’s predilection for tackling B-characters, while also being perfect to lead a project for DC Elseworlds, and one who would no doubt require a consummate filmmaker and double consummate storyteller to bring to life.
A Zack Snyder-Helmed Batman Beyond Would Be Amazing
Snyder’s sci-fi and action-oriented leanings as a filmmaker would make him a natural for a Batman Beyond movie or limited series. Just looking at Snyder’s work on the Krypton prologue of Man of Steel and the sprawling space opera of the Rebel Moon universe, Batman Beyond would be right up his alley as a comic book world just waiting to be brought to life with Snyder’s signature comic book-style visual style. Even better, Snyder’s predilection for deconstructing superheroes could be well-suited for a Batman Beyond movie or series, diving into the psyche of an older Bruce Wayne mentoring an up-and-coming Dark Knight like Terry McGinnis and combining such a layered approach to superhero storytelling with Snyder’s talent for both stunning visuals and astounding action sequences. Additionally, the Rebel Moon movies, with their high-tech warships of the stars, flashy laser canons and other sci-fi weapons, and characters like the autonomous robot Jimmy (voiced by Anthony Hopkins) also demonstrate the flair Snyder could bring to a futuristic Gotham City setting. And how about this for a possibility – what if a Snyder-directed Batman Beyond project was actually incorporated into Snyder’s outline for the Justice League sequels?
The general story about Snyder’s Justice League 2 and Justice League 3 plans are known through a collection of whiteboards released when the Snyder Cut dropped (though Snyder has also said he has a somewhat modified whiteboard outline of the story capturing the essence of how they’d be made now, which remains hidden from public view.) Even if the Snyderverse is eventually revived, the passage of time since Zack Snyder’s Justice League and the extremely rocky road for the franchise before and after its release would necessitate some degree of modification to the story to account for older versions of the heroes on the League and other factors. Batman Beyond, being set in the distant future, could help account for this, presenting Ben Affleck’s Batman, as the only real human member of the League, stepping back after a lifetime of injuries into semi-retirement with Terry McGinnis filling in for him to protect Gotham, with Bruce remaining as a kind of adjunct member of the League. The arrival of Darkseid could be the kind of emergency to prompt Bruce to don the cowl one last time, leading into Snyder’s Knightmare story and the final showdown with Darkseid that leads to Batman sacrificing his life as the intended culmination of Snyder’s five-part story. In the midst of that, however, could be a wild Batman Beyond movie under Zack Snyder’s stewardship, bridging his original story into a kind of Snyderverse 2.0 phase, this time with Terry McGinnis entering the story in a way no one ever expected, and even becoming part of the grandiose finale of “the entire world becomes a Justice League” that Snyder had originally intended.
While all of the above is a lot to extrapolate from a simple friendly picture between James Gunn and Zack Snyder, the reality is that bringing Snyder back into the DC spotlight at a time when a new DC cinematic universe is about to launch was inevitably going to inspire heavy speculation of Snyder making a DC comeback, a fact both Gunn and Snyder would have been keenly aware of. While both Gunn and Snyder surely knew the restoration of the Snyderverse would immediately be on everyone’s mind, the plans for a DC Elseworlds wing, Gunn’s affinity for B-level comic book characters, Snyder’s deconstructionist leanings as a superhero filmmaker, and the flashy tech-heavy sci-fi world of the Rebel Moon universe open far greater possibilities than that alone. The eventual revival of Snyder’s Justice League sequels might indeed be on the table after Gunn secures some wins for the DCU, but Zack Snyder helming a Batman Beyond project could be just as exciting, either as a standalone Elseworlds story, or a new unexpected chapter in a reworked and modified Snyderverse 2.0.
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Tell us, would you like to see Zack Snyder direct a Batman Beyond movie?
