UPDATE, August 17: The reporting kept moving after the photo. Per our insiders, the Superman Snyder wants opposite Affleck is Henry Cavill, and The Dark Knight Returns is already storyboarded front to back, planned as Millerâs graphic novel as written. Weâre now also told why Paramount wants Snyderâs The Dark Knight Returns, and how it could become the path back to the SnyderVerse.
Zack Snyder knows exactly what he’s doing, and Saturday happens to be Ben Affleck’s birthday. He turns 54.
Hours after our exclusive that the Batman Zack wants for The Dark Knight Returns is Ben Affleck, with no offer possible until the merger closes, Snyder posted a photo of the two of them together on the set of Batman v Superman.
The caption: “Build your wings on the way down….Ben and I on the set of BvS.”
The music on the post says even more: “We Do This Together,” from Tom Holkenborg’s Zack Snyder’s Justice League score.
The post cleared 4,000 likes in its first 15 minutes.
The Timing, Again
This is now a pattern, and the receipts are dated.
In February, when we first reported Snyder’s preferred Batman for the story remains Affleck, it came wrapped around Snyder sharing an Affleck Batman Dark Knight image.
In July, the morning after his “when they let us” comments made the rounds, Snyder and Frank Miller jointly posted the video morphing Miller’s splash page into Affleck’s armored Batman.
And now, hours after our report, with the film built for IMAX and ready the day someone can greenlight it, Snyder posts himself directing Affleck in Gotham’s wreckage.
Three for three. Snyder does not post randomly.
The Caption Is A Ray Bradbury Credo
“Build your wings on the way down” is Ray Bradbury.
Bradbury’s point was that if we listened to our intellect alone, we would never risk a love affair, a friendship, or a business. His answer: “jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.”
It’s a credo about doing the audacious thing before the safety net exists. Snyder chose it for a photo of the Batman partnership our reporting says he is ready to resume, at the exact moment the only missing piece is an owner who can say yes.
And the song choice removes most of the squint. Instagram music is picked, not assigned. Snyder scored this photo with a track titled “We Do This Together,” pulled from the Snyder Cut itself.
We’ll label our read as a read: this is not nostalgia posting.
The Comments Filled In The Rest
Within minutes: direct pleas for Snyder to make The Dark Knight Returns, RestoreTheSnyderVerse hashtags, IMAX Justice League requests, and “Batfleck solo is coming.”
The audience is reading the same tea leaves. The difference is our readers already have the reporting underneath it.
It also lands amid the directors’ cuts push with Snyder’s name on it, another signal of where the post-merger Warner Bros. is leaning.
