UPDATE 9/29: Insiders say Paramount-Warner is looking at The Dark Knight Returns as a two-part event movie, adapting the graphic novel with no changes.
UPDATE 9/17: Snyder calls The Dark Knight Returns “a holy grail” in a new interview, where he also says he isn’t watching any of the current DCU.
Zack Snyder says the one superhero movie left for him is Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns — “if anyone would ever let me do it outside of the DC Universe.”
Per our insiders, that’s not a hypothetical.
The quote comes from Snyder’s new Variety interview, given the morning after The Last Photograph‘s TIFF premiere.
“A Novel That Just Happens To Have Superheroes In It”
Snyder was asked about his old line that the only way he’d do another superhero movie is The Dark Knight Returns.
“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,” he explained.
“You can do no more than those two books,” Snyder added. 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.
He continued, “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.”
The Dark Knight Returns Is Already Storyboarded
Now line that quote up against the dates.
In July, Snyder sat next to Frank Miller in Los Angeles and told the room he’d make it “when they let us.”
In August, our insiders said the movie is ready to go, with Jay Oliva and IMAX in the mix, and storyboarded “as-is,” like Watchmen.
On September 1, an insider told us Snyder is “well prepared for a Dark Knight film,” the same day we reported James Gunn’s DC contract expires in 2027 with no new extension.
And Snyder himself said it two weeks ago: “I put weight on the rumors, because the rumors work.”
“If anyone would ever let me” has a shape now, and it’s Paramount buying WBD.
And on that topic, Snyder said he would love to have a conversation with the Ellisons.
Related: In the same interview, Zack addressed the reception to The Last Photograph, and revealed WB execs admitted he was right about DC all along.
