Zack Snyder gave his blessing to James Wan on his director’s cut ofAquaman. Snyder has an interesting relationship to the on-screen DC universe at this point. He was the man who kicked this whole franchise off withMan of Steel, ultimately leading toBatman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, a movie that proved to be quite dark in tone and massively divisive.Justice Leagueentered production very shortly after that movie was released, which made for a tumultuous production process as Warner Bros. clearly didn’t want to repeat the same mistake twice. These days, Snyder isn’t really involved in the DC movies in a meaningful way, but he still gave his seal of approval toAquaman.
James Wanwas tapped to directAquamanbefore the DC boat was rocked all too hard. Zack Snyder eventually departedJustice League, even though he still wound up being the credited director, with Joss Whedon coming in to finish up the movie and conduct massive reshoots. Still, Wan clearly wanted to see what Snyder thought about his DC Comics adaptation and, apparently,Zack Snyderwas happy with what he had done. Here’s what Wan had to say about it in a recent interview.
“Yeah, I showed Zack [Snyder] my Director’s Cut pretty much right after I finished it and he gave me his thumbs up. He was really complementary about it. He basically gave his blessing to me to go finish the movie, because he knew how huge of an undertaking I had with the visual effects. What he saw was a lot of blue screen, a lot of pre-viz and a lot of storyboards. You photograph your storyboards and you cut it into the film and so it was very very rough and crude. But, I think the human element is there that played and I think he and Debbie [Snyder] were very complimentary about it. They gave us their blessing.”
Zack Snyder and his wife Deborah wereboth credited as producersonAquaman, but it doesn’t seem like they had much in the way of creative input. AfterJustice Leaguefailed to meet expectations, Warner Bros. shifted their strategy with DC Films behind the scenes. What that ultimately meant is that whatever vision Snyder had for this universe in the beginning was thrown out the window.
From a financial standpoint, that may have been the right movie. So far,Aquamanhas already grossed more than $750 million worldwide, bestingJustice League,Man of SteelandSuicide Squad. Critics and moviegoers have also, generally speaking, been more kind to the movie, when compared to those that Zack Snyder directed.
Still, it was Zack Snyder who hired Jason Momoa to play the role ofArthur Curryand, without that,Aquamanwouldn’t be what it has become. We’re never going to see the Snyder cut ofJustice Leagueand we’ll never know what would have been if Warner Bros. had stayed true to his vision. But it’s clear that James Wan still has respect for the man and, without Snyder, we wouldn’t be in a place whereAquamancould wind up grossing $1 billion worldwide. This news was first reported byCollider.
