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It’s a strange time to interview Zack Snyder.
The previous evening, his new film “The Last Photograph” premiered to a packed house at the Toronto International Film Festival. Produced by his wife Deborah, adapted from
a screenplay by longtime collaborator Kurt Johnstad (“300”), and directed by Snyder, the action-thriller follows a former DEA operative (Stuart Martin, a dead ringer for Hugh Jackman) who navigates a hellish unnamed South American country in search of his missing niece and nephew after their parents are brutally murdered. He’s joined by a battle-scarred, heroin-shooting war photographer (Fra Fee) who witnessed the killings. Snyder has been planning to make the film since the aughts — Christian Bale and Sean Penn were attached to star at one point — and shot it in 32 days, mostly in Colombia. He contracted COVID during production and was running a 100-degree fever but soldiered through. It’s finally here.
And it’s getting killed online. Snyder is used to charged discourse surrounding his films, but this time feels different. It’s a smaller film made independently that feels like his way of processing the death of his daughter Autumn, an aspiring writer who took her own life in 2017. Snyder and Deborah subsequently left “Justice League” during post-production to grieve, only to have Joss Whedon step in and make major changes to the movie, leading to allegations of misconduct. Snyder’s army of fans rather loudly demanded for the “Snyder Cut,” and, well, you know the rest.
Which brings us to the interview. It’s the morning after the premiere and I’m sitting across from Snyder in the lobby of his Toronto hotel. He seems remarkably sanguine given the backlash to his long-gestating passion project, and ready to speak his mind.
It’s taken a long time for “The Last Photograph” to come to fruition.
It did! It’s been, like, two decades. It would be one thing if it was two decades where we had done nothing else, and the truth is that most of the things that we’ve done have stopped us more than anything. I think we were working on this before “300.” The reality of how we did it this time is, we had a hole in the schedule and there’s another script I wrote, “Illusions,” based on the Richard Bach book. We were like, “Should we make ‘Illusions’ or should we make ‘The Last Photograph?’ How should we do this?” And then we went, “Let’s do ‘The Last Photograph.’” And the window was small. We shot this in 32 days. The thing that I credit most is the team and our own skillset of being able to mount it and do it quickly with no money.
And it is a very dark film.
It’s a deadly serious movie, but on the other hand, if you’ve seen my movies, I’m in love with kitsch, and the highest-art version of kitsch, and I don’t think I ever escape that. As a filmmaker, I never try to escape that — even in a work like this. I am being earnest but I’m always self-aware, and I have a hard time with straight drama without the melodramatic side, which to me is the interesting side. I’m always self-aware of the fact that it is a movie about a thing about a thing. I’m never not having a conversation in my mind about the fact that, “Oh, the audience is watching these two actors talk about a thing that never happened.”
This does feel like a personal film for you since it’s ultimately about a father traveling through hell to save his daughter.
I think it was very affected by what I’ve been through. The story changed a little bit and I can’t help it; that’s just going to get in there. I can’t say exactly what it all means in the end other than I do think there’s some catharsis in the process of examining it. Without setting out to give myself a therapy session, I think that happens and that’s real.
Does that make you a composite of your two leads — the father who is numb to the world and the photographer who is also numb to the world but feels compelled to document it?
For sure. Look, I’m famously surrounded by a particular discourse that happens around my movies. It’s incredibly charged. And I thought, for the smallest of moments, that because it’s a small movie and it’s really not that big of a deal, that it’d be allowed to exist on whatever level it is. What kind of noise does a tiny movie like this warrant from the world?
Have you been paying attention to the noise?
Yeah. This morning, I woke up to my X feed, and the discourse is incredibly energized by this battle. It’s like there’s a war going on — instantly — and on one hand, I don’t want to say it’s cool, but it has to exist in some ways. I don’t know why. The amount of energy and the amount of vitriol I find really incredible. “I want to kill Zack Snyder.” “Zack Snyder is a fascist.” “Zack Snyder is a homophobe.” “Zack Snyder is a bisexual.”
Bisexual? Because the two lead actors are buff and shirtless a lot?
I guess! It’s “homoerotic” and “transphobic” and “fascist” and all these things.
The most common criticism I’ve seen is that there is a lot of violence and brutality toward women in the film and that it was excessive, which has led to accusations of misogyny being leveled against you. What do you say to that?
I mean, I don’t know. First of all, I would argue that the violence toward women and men is equal and that nobody is spared — men, women, children, everybody. The justice that’s doled out in the movie is in the same way that a hurricane doles out justice. To try and superimpose morality over it and want the violence to mean something — the meaning is that violence doesn’t work and doesn’t get anything done.
Are you inured to online criticism at this point or does it still get to you?
We’re all human. I guess in my feed, and this is just what my algorithm shows me, it’s a conversation. Even though I think it started out, “Zack Snyder sucks!” “Fuck him!” “You fascist!” What happens now is, “You guys are fucking crazy. This is just a movie. Calm down.”
Do you think this is more about people’s preexisting feelings about you going into the movie?
100%. There were only 1,200 people in the theater and there are thousands of comments! There was one I was reading where it was a guy who clipped it and said, “I haven’t seen it yet but I’m sure it was horrible.” And look: Whether you like the movie or not, I’m not even commenting on that; but with me, it’s more clickable to say, “I hate Zack Snyder! He’s a fascist!” than it is to say, “I saw the movie and it was cool.” Nobody gives a fuck about that. And obviously, I’m not a fascist.
When we showed “300” at the Berlin Film Festival this exact same thing happened. There was immediate discourse around the movie, and everyone booed and walked out. It was our first time showing the movie and we were like, “What the fuck.” They were saying it was “a disaster,” “the worst movie ever” and a “fascist” movie. Then we had a press conference where they were asking me all these questions, like, “Are you a fascist filmmaker?”
In Berlin.
In Berlin! Classic. Maybe they’re a little more sensitive. The hallmark question was when one of the guys said, “Are you pro-gay or pro-NRA? Which are you?” And I said, “Look, I’ll be honest: I’m a tiny bit of both.” But obviously I’m pro-gay. I made the gayest movie ever made.
You think “300” is the gayest movie ever made?
“300” is one of the gayest movies ever made. I always go, “Look, there are few movies where people come in straight and come out gay, and ‘300’ is one of them.”
Christopher Nolan is a big admirer of “300.” Did he consult you on “The Odyssey” at all?
No. He doesn’t work like that. But he showed me the movie early and I loved it. It’s amazing and really fun.
James Cameron is also a fan and has praised you in the past as a guy who’s “creating their own cinematic language.” Given that, how do you feel about AI? Because that’s a technology that remixes it.
My current rules on AI are that I’m very adamant that the shots are made by a person — the framing, the composition. I don’t want AI making shots. And I’m very adamant that the people are people — real humans — in the shot. The film I just made is the furthest thing from AI. There’s dirt in the film. The problem is, when you’re into the VFX pipelines now, who knows what’s happening back there. In the creation of images, there’s going to be a lot of crossover in the VFX world between CGI and AI. That line is getting blurrier and blurrier. If we were shooting this [points to table], having AI take that plant out? Pretty fucking easy. Anybody can do it. If you and I are still you and I in the shot, did that happen in the backrooms of some visual effects company that I don’t know about? Possibly. But don’t change the people. That’s the line, for me — the people have to be real.
Because then it truly lacks humanity if there aren’t actual humans in it.
That’s the slippery slope. Once you accept that, then you’ll accept anything, and then certain movies are dead. We know that there are backrooms visual effects pipelines where we make a shot and then I go, “Oh, it would be cool if there was a CG lamp on the table.” They say, “Sure,” and give it to the visual effects company. It comes back and we go, “Good work. But how exactly did you do that?” And they say, “Oh, we did a CG model, we did texturing, we shot some photographs.” And I say, “Oh, that’s the old CG pipeline. That sounds good.” But do I know that’s true? No, I don’t. So there’s the reality of where we are right now, which is, it costs a lot to make that CG lamp the old way, but how much does it cost to put an AI lamp there that looks basically the same? Very little. Maybe they charge me the same! I don’t know. And I don’t know this for a fact, but that must be happening because of the economics. Do you say, “I won’t drive that car because it was built by a robot?” Or does it feel the same as if it were built by a person?
I’m curious what you think about the pending takeover of your old studio, Warner Bros., by Paramount Skydance. It’s something a lot of people in the industry are worried about. The immediate effect will surely be a massive loss of jobs, but we are also seeing power being consolidated.
Look, I don’t 100% have an opinion. I haven’t talked to Larry [Ellison] and don’t know what the Ellisons want to do, really. I would love to have a conversation with them. I know they value the brand and Warner Bros. is one of the great cinematic brands of all time. To have a movie with a Warner Bros. shield on the front of it means something.
“Casablanca.”
It means something. And most of my movies have that logo on it. So, it’s hard for me to say. I can’t sit here and say, “I’m mad because they’re going to fuck it up!” Maybe I’m an optimist or maybe I’m a naïve idiot, but the reality is I think they love movies, and I would hope that people that love movies understand the value of Warner Bros. And they own another studio with an amazing moniker: Paramount.
“The Godfather.”
“Indiana Jones.” So, that’s my hope. Maybe I’m an optimist and I’m an idiot.
I’ve interviewed people about getting fired before. I once spoke with Adam Sandler here at TIFF about being fired from “SNL” and Drake opened up to me about being fired from his show “Degrassi.” How do you feel about having the DC superhero universe taken from you when you’d made quite a bit of money for the studio?
The circumstances around it were so particular. It just kind of crawled over me. What was happening with me and my family was so intense.
And to have this be added to it.
It was so loud — that part was so loud — that, in retrospect, asking, “How’s the movie going?” And they go, “Oh, it’s fine! They’re doing some reshoots.” And I go, “Oh, OK. Fuck it.” So, Debbie went and watched the Joss [Whedon] version of the movie, and to have her come back to me and say, “You can never see that movie,” and to realize then that it was 60 pages of rewrites that they did for it… I’ve never seen the movie, so I don’t know.
You’ve never seen Joss’ version?
I’ve never seen it. There was a point when the movie was released that was a low point for me because the pile-on effect was so insane. Not only did I lose my daughter, but also they’ve released this version of the movie that I had nothing to do with and my name is on a movie that I didn’t make.
Were you like, “What else?!”
“What else!” Literally. But there was this catharsis of, I met with this executive at Warner Bros. who’s long gone since — I won’t say who it was — and he said to me, “You know, Zack, I’ve got to tell you one thing: You were right about everything.” And I was like, “That’s kind of you.” And he goes, “We were fighting you, and in the end you were right.”
What were they fighting you on?
The whole vision for the DC universe and the way I made movies and everything. They did this attempt to control it — and I’m just talking about the regime that was there that’s no longer there. They had this massive IP that’s worth a ton and I can understand wanting to protect it as best they could since all their jobs depended on it working, and they’d put it in the hands of a madman — or so they thought — so the part of them thinking that, and this is going to sound horrible, “This thing that happened to Zack is a window for us to take the movie back now.”
It’s unfortunate that that’s the way some people in the industry think.
Yeah. But the catharsis of being able to finish it, and do it my way, was amazing. I can’t walk down the street without having people come up to me and say, “Thank god for that movie.” And it’s awesome.
I do want to know what your thoughts are on the current state of the DC Universe. Have you seen “Superman” or “Supergirl”?
I haven’t seen the movies. It’s a little bit too personal for me. Too soon, I guess you could say. I do like James [Gunn]. And I do have an appreciation for his [vision].
He consulted with you on Superman’s suit, right?
He asked me a question about the underwear. You know, I can’t even remember now, but I think it was about the underwear. Sorry, but I’m going to do a little diatribe. “Watchmen” is a superhero deconstruction film — neuroses, sexual impotence around their costumes, the fetishism, everything. You can’t undo that. I think about everything that way. So, the underwear on the outside of the superhero costume comes from Victorian strongmen. The Victorians were so prudish that they’d wear flesh-colored leotards and then put the underwear over it. That’s how it started. It was really just a reflection of the Victorians not wanting to show any real skin due to their prudish fear of nakedness. So to me, that’s such a dinosaur. We don’t feel that way anymore. We live in an era where we’re OK without putting the underwear on. But maybe we’re not OK! Maybe the message is that you put the underwear back on Superman because we haven’t moved on from our Victorian prudishness. But I thought we had!
There is sex in your movie and there isn’t a lot of sex in movies anymore.
This is one of my big things: Sex in movies is weirdly gone. I don’t understand it.
And there’s plenty of sex on TV, but not in movies.
And it’s on TV! TV shows can have sex but movies, for whatever reason, can’t. What happened? I’m an ‘80s kid and grew up with “Body Heat,” “9 ½ Weeks.”
I’m a ‘90s kid and grew up with “Basic Instinct” and “The Last Seduction” and “Wild Things.”
Eroticism in movies has somehow been stomped out, and I don’t understand it. We watched “Excalibur” the other day and it’s a very sexy movie. It’s erotic.
Make Hollywood Movies Sexy Again.
Make them sexy again! I couldn’t agree more. I don’t know why TV gets a pass.
“Game of Thrones” had so much sex that it coined the term “sexposition.”
Crazy sex. Crazy sex.
Is it the MPAA?
I don’t know what it is. You know what needs to happen? The same thing that happened with the R-rated movie. So, R-rated movies now have lost their stigma — “The Odyssey,” “Obsession,” whatever it is. Now, we need an NC-17 movie that’s a hit.
“Crash,” but make it a hit.
If we had an erotic thriller that was NC-17 and it was in IMAX and everyone had to just go do it, maybe that would lift the stigma.
I love that idea.
I was pitching to Debbie how I’d love to do an erotic anthology for a streamer. It’s missing. Like “Love Death + Robots” but live action and just erotic stories. The thing that porn has done, which I think is a service, is it’s taken all the mythology out of sex. It just shows the thing with no mythology or drama. But sex has the ability to have huge mythology and drama. It’s one of the driving forces of our existence, but somehow, we just bash it down and don’t think about it and do all these dances around it. With “Euphoria” and “Game of Thrones” and all these shows, TV knows that if you use sex to heighten the drama, it’s a holy grail because they’re hooked. Because a movie is a one-off experience, I think everyone is afraid to turn people off for a second, whereas TV isn’t afraid to push you away for a little bit since you’re invested.
Now that you’ve made “The Last Photograph,” are there other films you’re still dying to make? Do you still want to make a “Rick and Morty” movie?
I do want to make a “Rick and Morty” movie. It would be fun. For the longest time, I’ve been trying to make “The Fountainhead” into a movie or into TV show because it’s too long. I’ve written it.
That’s not going to help with the right-wing allegations.
I was going to say! That’s not going to help. But it’s an undeniably great book. What people don’t realize is that “The Fountainhead” in the 1950s was like “Harry Potter” now in terms of popularity. It was off the charts. Even just the why of that is worth it. And “The Fountainhead” is an insane melodrama. That’ll probably be my magnum opus. I’ll probably die on that one. And “Escape From New York” is what we’re working on right now.
I love your “Dawn of the Dead.” Why haven’t you done another horror movie?
Right now, I’m reading a comic book called “Dead Samurai,” about a zombie apocalypse in feudal Japan. It’s kind of like “The Road” and “Lone Wolf and Cub,” where a disgraced samurai has to take this young girl across this zombie war-torn feudal Japan and get her to this Buddhist temple that is somehow protected from zombies. It really is awesome. I read it and thought, “This is a no-brainer.” It has everything. You could imagine beautiful, snow-covered feudal Japanese forests with these bleeding zombies coming for this “Throne of Blood” samurai with arrows in his back. That’s something we’ve been getting our teeth into a little bit.
How did your Christian Science upbringing inform your superhero films? Because you do depict your superheroes as gods.
It’s this alchemy of Christian Science and Joseph Campbell — however you want to mix those together. Christian Science, in the end, is metaphysics. It’s probably closer to Buddhism than Western Christianity or Catholicism. It’s about the miraculous. The one thing about Christian Science is, it’s very much about: The works that I can do, you can do too. I’m the son of God but so are you. It’s very much, like, Jesus is just a dude who figured it out. That influence on Superman is that we’re him — in “Man of Steel,” especially. Yes, he’s godlike, but he still faces the exact same problems that we face. In the end, he loves his mother and wants to find love with Lois and have a job and be a person. Even though I do glorify the version of Superman at its best, I also try at the same time to put you in that position because I believe that we all are Supermen and we all are gods on Earth. I think that’s probably the influence in some ways.
You said once that the only way you’d do another superhero movie is if you could do an adaptation of Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns.”
The reason why it’s “The Dark Knight Returns,” if anyone would ever let me do it outside of the DC Universe since it’s a novel that just happens to have superheroes in it, is if I could do “Watchmen” and “Dark Knight Returns,” those two books next to each other, to me, represent the complete cycle of the superhero comic book medium. You can do no more than those two books. “Watchmen” came at the beginning of the superhero movie phase, so it would be super fitting to have “The Dark Knight Returns” come now, at what I would say is possibly — I don’t want to call it the twilight, but we’re down the road of the superhero movie genre, and I think audiences would understand the why of it. Let’s not forget: “The Dark Knight Returns” was written for a comic book audience that was very exhausted by comic books in the same way that “Watchmen” was, so having that movie written now for people who are exhausted by comic book movies would be a good time.
