While fielding audience questions after a screening of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Ultimate Edition at SnyderCon 2023, director Zack Snyder got into the topic of director’s cuts and his relationship with them – as well as the idea of studio ownership.
How does Zack Snyder feel about director’s cuts?
When Snyder was asked how he felt about the first version of a movie not always being the “ultimate version,” the director spoke about his own history with alternate cuts.
“The truth is … people would know that I have a certain relationship with the director’s cuts of my movies and my relationship to the marketplace and how that … if analyzed in retrospect over the course of my career … you can kind of see a bit of a pattern developing. And maybe by the time it reached [Batman v Superman] … mainstream pop culture hadn’t really come around to or understood how that concept works with me.”
Snyder also touched on the complications that come with working in franchise film.
“I’m okay with it, because I understand that movies are expensive and … they are, on one had, this incredible vision of what you think is cool … but on the other hand, they’re a product that someone paid you a lot of money to make, so there’s a balance there. We all understand … they own the movie in the end. It’s their movie, it’s their I.P., it’s everything. We’re stealing it, a little bit, to make our movie … for me, that this version of the movie exists at all is what I’m happy about.”
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice first released in 2016. Directed by Zack Snyder and written by Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer, the movie would go on to receive a director’s cut release, which had an R rating and a longer runtime by 31 minutes.
