4 Months After DCEU Ended, Here's What Zack Snyder Hopes to See in James Gunn's DC Universe

Summary

• Director Zack Snyder was the original curator of the DC cinematic universe.
• After a decade of disappointing results, Snyder is finished with the DC films.
• The movies are now about to be rebooted by an old friend of Snyder's.
• Snyder recently revealed what he's hoping to see in the new movies.

The year was 2013. With Marvel raking in billions at the box office with its interconnected superhero movies, it was time for DC to kick off its own extended universe. After all, Marvel had taken characters like Iron Man and Thor (both relatively obscure at the time) and Captain America (hopelessly old fashioned) and turned them into bone-fide sensations that led to 2012's The Avengers.

Zack Snyder led the charge on creating a DC Extended Universe, directing many of the franchise's films and producing most of the others.

But Zack Snyder's DCEU never did match the success of its rival franchise, and after a decade of faltering box office receipts and 'meh' reviews the whole thing came to an anticlimactic end with the 2023 flop Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.

Now the entire thing is getting rebooted. So what does Zack Snyder think of that?

Old Friends

Luckily, Snyder doesn't have to see the DC stories that he loves fall into untrustworthy hands. The new curator of the DC film world is James Gunn, who has a successful history with superhero movies – he's the one who helmed the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy as well as the Suicide Squad reboot, confusingly titled The Suicide Squad.

More than that, Snyder and Gunn have a history together: Snyder's 2004 directorial debut, The Dawn of the Dead, was actually written by Gunn. (Somewhat depressingly for Snyder, this remains his most critically accepted film – it holds a 76% on Rotten Tomatoes, still the highest he's ever earned).

Snyder and Gunn remain friends to this day.

What Is Snyder Hoping For?

In an interview with CBR, Snyder expressed pleasure that his old friend is now picking up the torch at DC.

When asked what he was hoping to see from the upcoming reboot of the DC universe, Snyder said:

'You know, I'm a pretty open book. I really feel like, you know, if the characters are treated with reverence, and mythologically correct, then I'm down. I'm in. Let's see what happens. I'm pretty excited[...] I mean, we're going to get Superman pretty soon, so we'll see what that's like.'

Gunn is equally supportive of his friend. Back in February, he posted on X (formerly Twitter):

'He contacted me to express his support about my choices [with the DCU]. He's a great guy. Again, he seems really happy with the massive world building he's doing now.'

That 'massive world building' is in reference to Snyder's work on his new films Rebel Moon and Rebel Moon Part 2. The combined budget for the two outer-space fantasy movies was $166 million. The first movie has a sub-par 21% on Rotten Tomatoes, and so far the sequel isn't faring much better – it currently sits at 15%.

Snyder hopes that the world he set up in these first movies will go on to spawn an entire Rebel Moon universe; this most likely depends on how much of an audience Part 2 draws. The sequel dropped on Netflix on April 19, 2024. Snyder has never pleased critics, but he's always drawn intense fans – so it's possible that the movie will be a hit, and that we'll be seeing a lot more of him in the future.

Just not in the DCU.

Source: CBR.