Zack Snyder Asked For Christopher Nolan's Blessing For Batman V Superman... And Barely Got It

By Dan Woburn / January 28, 2016

Imagine calling Christopher Nolan, the man responsible for some of the best Batman stories in any medium, and asking if he minds you using the character for your film - where you want to have him fight Superman and essentially be the bad guy. Now imagine that the first response is a lengthy silence. Not really going to fill you with much hope, is it? That's basically what happened to Zack Snyder when he respectfully asked for Nolan's blessing in the planning stages of Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice. Talking with Empire, Snyder related the slightly awkward tale;

€œYou tell me if you don€™t want me to do it,€ Snyder told Nolan. After a silence, Nolan said, €œWell, we don€™t own these characters. When you€™re done making Batman movies, someone else will . I think he found it a little bit hard,€ Snyder admits. €œI would feel the same way.€

Nolan's response actually sounds a little bit like "if it's not you, it'll just be someone else - so it might as well be you" without actually sounding overly enthusiastic about it being Snyder. It's not an endorsement of the slo-mo/green-screen-loving director, it's more of a sad resignation to the fact that other people are going to make Batman films (no surprises there), and this guy is one of them. That said, Nolan shouldn't be too precious about the character; Batman has existed for over 75 years, after all. He also can't be bitter about Warner Bros. continuing to want to make films about the character - it'd be criminally stupid from a business standpoint not to, after all - as they did offer him several truckloads of dollar bills to come back and put his own spin on it with Christian Bale, but they said no.

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice is released on 25th March.