Zack & Deborah Snyder Talk Justice League Universe; R-Rating, Rumors & More

Check out some highlights:

On Deadpool being the rumored reason why they went with an R-rated Batman Vs. Superman director’s cut home release:

Deborah Sndyer: Online, everyone’s like, “Oh, they’re doing an R-rated in reaction to Deadpool,” and you’re like (laughing), “We didn’t just shoot it last week, and we also didn’t edit it last week.”

Zack Snyder: The why of that is [the DVD version] is a half-hour longer, and some of that additional material is some of the stuff we took out for the rating. I was like, “Cool, I can put it back in for the director’s cut.” There was nothing by design. This was the material I just put back in, and then when [the MPAA] looked at it again, they were like, “Oh, now the movie’s rated R.” And, by the way, it’s not a hard R. There’s no nudity. There’s a little bit of violence. It just tips the scale.

On the rumor that following the second Batman Vs. Superman trailer (with Doomsday), they went back and re-cut the movie:

DS:  No. When we had a locked picture, we didn’t change anything. We’ve been working on the 3D. We did the 3D conversion after the movie was done.

On the Justice League universe:

DS: Zack and [DC chief creative officer] Geoff Johns have outlined a timeline of where everybody is based off of, where our characters go in Justice League. So there’s a framework. 

Zack: Batman v. Superman was always a step­pingstone for Justice League, and it was a way to bring the worlds together without being too jarring. Once you say Batman and Superman exist in the same universe, you’re also saying that Wonder Woman can exist in that world and Flash and Cyborg and Aquaman.

The mandate is that we try and make the best movies we can. If you’re making a Flash movie with Ezra Miller, it’s like millennial Flash. It’s going to be a little lighter than making a World War I epic with this feminist icon like Wonder Woman. The films do live in a united universe.  

Members of the DC Brain trust (in addition to Zack and Deborah):

ZACK Chuck [Roven], our partner.

DEB Richard Suckle is producing some of these. On our end, Wesley Coller is an executive producer who works on all the things that we work on. He’s part of our inner family. Geoff Johns is just super valuable, and I think Zack and Geoff really have worked out a lot of the creative ideas as to where the characters are going. Geoff [ensures] we’re doing things that are true to the canon because he knows everything about these characters. And Jon Berg is our executive on all the films, and then obviously Greg [Silverman] was our executive when we first came to Warner Bros., so we’ve always worked with Greg.

They seemingly take a dig or two toward Marvel in regards to giving the DC directors freedom to go the route they want to:

Deb: But it’s filmmaker-driven, in that we want to hire direc­tors who still have a point of view and that have latitude because we don’t want all the movies to feel the same. David Ayer has a certain tone and feel to what he brought to Suicide Squad, as does Patty [Jenkins] to Wonder Woman. They have freedom to tell their story in the way that it needs to be told.

Zack: Our philosophy, though, is it’s filmmaker-driven. A lot of it comes from the idea of “do unto others.” How would I feel if I was told, “Listen, this is your movie, but shoot it like we say”? It’s not fun and cool, and I don’t think you get the best work from everybody. To understand that, there is a bigger storyline, and let’s all support that and not blow up the entire universe because you have an idea that you think is awesome but doesn’t make sense with the bigger thing.

And on “DC vs. Marvel?”

Zack:  You have these two giant comic book powers, and it would make sense that they would in some ways be compared to each other. It’s like comparing Downton Abbey and Mr. Selfridge. Like Star Wars and Star Trek. Those are things that you could compare, but no one ever does. Those [DC versus Marvel] conversations are fun for the Internet. But in truth, it represents such a small group of people who are actually versed in the difference between DC and Marvel. The average moviegoer doesn’t know. Like my dad would be, “Is Spider-Man ever going to be in any of your films?”