Zack Snyder Given An Odd New Honor
Zack Snyder certainly has cultivated a devoted and cult following via his action-focused and stylistic approach to filmmaking, prominently in the comic book genre.
This article is more than 2 years old
Is Zack Snyder the goat? To legions of fans across social media, unified by the #Restorethesnyderverse movement, he most certainly is. Now though, according to Comicbook.com, the director has now been given a GOAT emoji on his Twitter handle. This comes in Twitter’s latest raft of GOAT emoji addons to the Twitter handles of various celebrities and sports stars. The GOAT designation translates to Greatest Of All Time and it would appear Zack Snyder is the only film director to receive the designation thus far, which led Comicbook.com in their report to question whether the designation was awarded by Twitter or the hordes of Snyder fans on the platform.
Zack Snyder certainly has cultivated a devoted and cult following via his action-focused and stylistic approach to filmmaking, prominently in the comic book genre. Action epics such as 300, Watchmen & Zack Snyder’s Justice League have fired Snyder into the hearts and minds of comic book movie fans the world over. His parting of the ways from Warner Bros and DC movies of course sparked the now infamous and aforementioned #Restorethesnyderverse movement.
Now it seems, whenever a DC Comics property is promoted, that hashtag is not too far behind. It came after the release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, an HBO MAX original that served as a redo of the Joss Wheedon helmed Justice League (2017) that Snyder departed after a tragic personal loss. Whedon’s retconned version of the film largely went against the grain compared to Snyder’s vision of the movie, and the 2017 cinematic release was widely criticized and caused a major rethink of how Warner Bros handles DC property in the future. This rethink also included putting an end to Snyder’s vision for the Justice League and any future stories, hence the Twitter outrage.
In life after DC and Warner Bros, Zack Snyder signed a first-look picture deal with Netflix. The first two pictures in this deal were zombie action-thriller Army of the Dead and its crime spin-off Army of Thieves. On the former, Snyder performed multiple roles–director, director of photography, producer and screenwriter. On Army of Thieves, Snyder served as a writer/producer. The zombie franchise represents a promising start for Snyder and Netflix’s relationship, with an anime spin-off project in the pipeline as well as an Army of the Dead sequel. Outside of the world of zombies, Snyder has another directorial feature headed for Netflix in 2024. Rebel Moon is the title of Snyder’s next major project and is billed as a Star Wars-style sci-fi extravaganza inspired by the works of Akira Kurosawa.
Whilst fans and Netflix are both firmly in the pro-Zack Snyder camp and believe him worthy of GOAT status, this has not always been the case for cinema critics. For example, Snyder’s 2011 feature Sucker Punch was devoured by critics and has a paltry Rotten Tomatoes rating of 22%. He also doesn’t have the Oscars acclaim of some of the great directors of years gone by. However, reports show that he is pushing, along with his fans, for Army of the Dead to receive the first Oscars fan-favourite award. Is Zack Snyder worthy of the GOAT label? Is he in the GOAT conversation for film directors? The beauty of film is that this is purely subjective, and no definitive decision can ever really be made, but for Snyder, what will be more important, is that whatever he produces, there are those loyal to him that will love and adore it.
