Zack Snyder is teaming up with the creator of The Dark Knight Returns.
Snyder has been announced as the moderator for the Los Angeles stop of Frank Miller’s “Storyteller” tour, sitting down with the comic book legend on Saturday, July 18 at the Wilshire Ebell Theater.
The event is part of a four-city tour promoting Miller’s new memoir, Push the Wall: My Life, Writing, Drawing and the Art of Storytelling, with Miller signing copies following each conversation.
The full tour lineup via How To Academy:
- July 13 – New York City: The Great Hall at Cooper Union, in conversation with Absolute Batman writer Scott Snyder
- July 15 – Austin: Lady Bird Johnson Auditorium, in conversation with Sin City co-director Robert Rodriguez
- July 18 – Los Angeles: Wilshire Ebell Theater, in conversation with Zack Snyder
- July 30 – London: Royal Geographical Society
Scott Snyder promoted the NYC date on X on Wednesday: “A week from Monday!”
Zack Snyder and Frank Miller Go Way Back
The pairing is no accident. Snyder launched his comic book movie career adapting Miller’s 300 in 2007, with Miller serving as executive producer, and Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns famously served as the visual and thematic blueprint for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
In fact, TDKR is how Snyder announced the movie: at San Diego Comic-Con 2013, Snyder took over the Hall H stage and brought out Man of Steel star Harry Lennix — who would later be revealed as Martian Manhunter — to read Batman’s famous “I want you to remember, Clark…” speech to Superman straight from the pages of Frank Miller’s graphic novel, sending Hall H into a frenzy before the Batman v Superman logo hit the screen for the first time.
Snyder later made clear that Batman v Superman only borrowed from Miller’s book by design, telling press in 2015 that TDKR was such a big influence he wanted to honor Miller through the film’s imagery, and pointedly adding that “you could still make Dark Knight Returns into a movie” given how much of the graphic novel he deliberately left untouched.
Snyder also appeared in the 2024 documentary Frank Miller: American Genius alongside Robert Rodriguez, Jim Lee, and the late Stan Lee.
Snyder Approached For Something Even Bigger
Here is where things get interesting.
Snyder has long framed The Dark Knight Returns as his superhero swan song. Back in December 2023, he said that if he ever made a true representation of the graphic novel, he would have done Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns and would be “pretty much done with superheroes.”
Just this past February, on the Happy Sad Confused podcast marking the tenth anniversary of Batman v Superman, Snyder confirmed he would still make The Dark Knight Returns as a film if the opportunity arose.
However, as Cosmic Book News exclusively reported back in March, Snyder has been approached for something even bigger than his swan song: sources filled us in that Zack Snyder is “gung ho” about adapting The Dark Knight Returns and finishing his Justice League arc once the Paramount Skydance acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery closes, with the deep-pocketed Gulf backers behind the merger said to want to go big on the SnyderVerse.
Now Snyder will be on stage, in public, with the man who created The Dark Knight Returns, three months into that reporting, and with the merger inching toward the finish line following DOJ approval.
Notably, Paramount is reportedly targeting July 15 to close the WBD deal, per the NY Post, meaning Snyder could be sharing the stage with the creator of The Dark Knight Returns just three days after the acquisition becomes official, and five days before San Diego Comic-Con.
Anything Miller and Snyder say about Batman, adaptations, or the future of DC on July 18 will be worth watching closely. Stay tuned.
Miller’s Manga Influence and DC’s Absolute Line
The tour also lands as DC’s Absolute line — led by Scott Snyder’s Absolute Batman, the best-selling comic of 2024 — continues to trounce Marvel on the comics side.
As we also exclusively reported, insiders point to the Absolute line’s sync with the global anime and manga wave as the reason it’s working, which is why Absolute Batman animated got the greenlight.
Fittingly, How To Academy’s own event copy credits Miller with introducing manga-style storytelling to American readers a decade before anime hit the U.S. mainstream, a straight line from Miller to Ronin to the Absolute books dominating the sales charts today.
Cosmic Book News Will Be There
Cosmic Book News will be in attendance at the Los Angeles event on July 18, so check back for our firsthand coverage of the Zack Snyder and Frank Miller conversation.
The timing couldn’t be better: the LA stop lands one day after Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey opens in theaters, and just five days before San Diego Comic-Con kicks off (July 23-26, with Preview Night on July 22), where CBN will also be on the ground.
Anything Miller and Snyder tease on stage heads straight into Comic-Con week, when DC news will be flying fast and furious.
Miller kicks things off with Scott Snyder in NYC on July 13; tickets for the remaining dates are available at howtoacademy.com.
And ahead of his July 18 sit-down with Frank Miller, Snyder is stoking the fire with a black suit Superman tease posted a week ahead of the event.
