It’s pretty clear that Warner Bros. are moving on from the Zack Snyder era of DC Comics movies. Aquaman bore little of his creative stamp; Shazam! even less. There’s no new Justice League movies on the horizon. Ben Affleck’s gone. Snyder’s working on a zombie movie. It’s over.

We’re all still talking about it though. Hardcore fans continue pestering about releasing a “Snyder Cut” of Justice League that would supposedly show his original vision of the film and not the vision of pure horror that made its way to theaters a few years ago. And Snyder is still talking about these movies and his perspective on DC’s heroes. At a recent post-screening Q&A, Snyder went off on a rant about the persistent complaint he heard about his films that Batman shouldn’t kill people. His Dark Knight (played by Ben Affleck) most certainly did.

You might be shocked to learn Snyder was not really buying that criticism. In fact, he said people who think Batman shouldn’t kill should “wake the f— up.” His exact words:

Someone says to me ‘Oh Batman killed a guy.’ I’m like ‘Really?’ I’m like ‘Wake the f— up.’ So I guess that’s what I’m saying about, once you’ve like lost your virginity to this f—ing movie and then you come and say to me something about like ‘Oh my superhero wouldn't do that.’ I’m like ‘Are you serious?’ I’m down the fucking road on that. And it's a cool point of view. Look, I’m 100% fine, it’s a cool point of view to be like ‘My heroes are still innocent. My heroes didn’t f—in’ lie to America. My heroes didn’t embezzle money from their corp— my heroes didn’t commit any atrocities.’ That’s cool, but you’re living in a f—ing dream world, okay?

Maybe I’m very naive, but, like, isn’t the point of escapism escaping into a dream world? If the world is even darker and sadder than the one we live in, that’s kind of a crappy escape, right?

Look, I think exploring a world in which Batman does kill people, or has lost his way morally, is a totally viable concept. That bleak worldview may not apply to every DC character, though. It makes a lot more sense in something like Watchmen than a Superman movie, for example. And dismissing superhero films that are light or entertaining or fun simply because they’re light and entertaining and fun is as absurd a perspective as insisting superheroes have to be light and entertaining and fun and nothing else.

Shazam opens in theaters on April 5. Based on Zack Snyder’s comments here, it sounds like he might really hate it?

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