UPDATE 3: “More than hosting duties” indeed. Per our insiders, the project waiting for Snyder is The Dark Knight Returns, built for IMAX with Jay Oliva along.
UPDATE 2: So much for no cameras. Fan footage from the movie night has hit the net, with Snyder telling the room to make every movie like it’s your last and revealing he quit S.W.A.T. before Dawn of the Dead.
UPDATE 1: Our source now tells us Paramount-WBD is planning a directors’ cut theatrical series as part of a “celebration of movies,” and Snyder is named.
The gates didn’t just open for Zack Snyder. They rolled out a welcome.
Less than a week after Snyder posted his Warner Bros. water tower selfie set to a song called “Home,” the director was back on the lot Monday night, and now Page Six Hollywood has the details of what is really going on.
Per Page Six’s Tatiana Siegel, studio bosses Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy invited Snyder back to host a screening of John Boorman’s 1981 Arthurian epic Excalibur for staffers, a film Snyder has long cited as one of his all-time favorites.
Snyder received a “hero’s welcome,” per the report: a full house of motion picture group employees and guests, some standing, for a Q&A between the Man of Steel director and the two studio chiefs. No cameras were allowed, and popcorn and candy were served.
The “Amazing People,” Identified
“Hanging out with a bunch of amazing people today down at the WB,” Snyder said in the post.
Turns out the amazing people run the studio.
De Luca and Abdy launched the employee movie nights when they joined Warners in 2022 to celebrate the studio’s library, with recent hosts including Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins introducing the original Blade Runner and Oliver Stone screening JFK.
Putting Snyder on that roster is the studio’s biggest olive branch since the 2021 split.
According to the report, however, not everyone inside is thrilled. Page Six quotes one current executive, a holdover from the Whedon-era wars, asking “What are Mike and Pam thinking?” Which tells you exactly how big a statement the invitation was.
Escape From New York To Warner Bros.?
Per the report, speculation is mounting that Snyder may be back in the fold for more than hosting duties.
Snyder is writing and directing the reimagining of Escape From New York for StudioCanal, and in December, StudioCanal parent CANAL+ signed a new multi-year, multi-territory agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery.
Page Six hears it should come as no surprise if Snyder’s film soon lands on Warners’ distribution calendar.
So think about it: A Zack Snyder movie, distributed by Warner Bros., in theaters.
“Purgatory” On The Lot
The backdrop makes the hero’s welcome even more striking.
Per Page Six, morale at the studio is at an all-time low, with one executive describing the place as “in purgatory” while the Paramount merger idles in court. This fits exactly with what our own insiders previously described: “It’s chaos over there…”
Another executive who once opposed the Ellisons’ takeover is now reportedly more annoyed at Rob Bonta’s blockade, which the exec called “performative,” than at the consolidation itself.
That tracks with Governor Newsom publicly pressuring Bonta to settle the lawsuit. The staff wants resolution, and the bosses are screening classics to hold the place together while they wait.
The 2021 Split: Arbitration And A Quiet Settlement
One more detail worth clocking. Page Six states Snyder and Warner Bros. parted ways in 2021 amid arbitration and a quiet settlement, with several of the executives he battled over Zack Snyder’s Justice League securing settlements of their own on the way out.
Nearly all of those people are long gone.
The two now running the studio are the ones who sent the invitation.
CBN Readers Knew
None of this should surprise anyone who reads this site.
As I have been reporting since October, the SnyderVerse return in play at a Paramount-owned Warner Bros. includes Henry Cavill back as Superman, with Christopher Nolan possibly attached as executive producer, as the De Luca-Abdy era takes shape.
Then came the month of signals: “when they let us” on stage with Frank Miller, the 106 gram stone at a “casting pond,” and a lot selfie set to “Home.”
Page Six floating that Snyder may be back in the fold is the mainstream catching up to what our insiders have been saying for ten months.
Going back even further, De Luca had plans to bring back the SnyderVerse with the real ending of The Flash.
