Justice League director Zack Snyder thinks the Dark Knight Returns is still ripe for a movie adaptation – even though he basically already did one, as top to bottom, his conception of Batman as embodied by Ben Affleck is an homage to the Frank Miller graphic novel.
In fact, if there was ever any doubt about where the director took his inspiration, it was squashed by the appearance of the Bat-Tank at the end of the Snyder Cut.
Leery or apprehensive of this at first, Miller has since grown to appreciate the riffing of his work and the exposure it gives him.
“I really gotta say that a few years have gone by since all this started, okay? And at first, my reaction was to be very territorial and all that,” he told The Beard and the Bald Movie Podcast in a new interview.
“And now I’ve kind of sat back and with a much deeper breath and longer view on the whole thing and all I can say is: this is great,” he continued. “I mean, I came in and I came up with my idea for The Dark Knight Returns and that basically was the big splash I made, which started my whole career going.”
Commenting on the growth and evolution of his creation, he added, “And since then I’ve seen the two fields collaborate back and forth. I benefited greatly from Dark Knight Returns and so have they and continue to. And it can only be looked at as a healthy relationship.”
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Healthy is a relative term when there’s still the potential for Warner Bros. to overdo it with the dark, gritty, somber, and militant Batman thus rendering the idea stale. After all, The Dark Knight Returns has already had several quasi-adaptations, most of which were in animation, the best of which is perhaps the two-part animated feature first released in 2012 and starring the voices of Peter Weller and Ariel Winter.
If we see a faithful live-action version at some point in the DCEU, Zack Snyder probably won’t have any input unless WB is forced to renew the Snyderverse by popular demand.
What are your thoughts on a potential Dark Knight Returns adaptation or the silver lining for Miller, who recently fell victim to cancel culture? Sound off below.