Snyder has created franchises of his own. He has a fervent fan base, but his films tend to divide critics. He can command as much creative control and budgetary leeway over an original I.P. as Christopher Nolan or Quentin Tarantino, but he’s nowhere near as revered as his fellow blockbuster auteurs.
Snyder’s most recent film, Rebel Moon, was an ambitious two-part space opera intended to kickstart a new franchise. It marked Snyder’s foray into yet another fantastical genre that requires a big budget and a lot of CGI to pull off. That’s been Snyder’s sandbox since the beginning of his career, but now, he’s making a change. Snyder had already teased that his next movie would be smaller after the lofty ambitions of Rebel Moon. Now that this smaller-scale movie has been confirmed, it’s an exciting direction for Snyder to take his career.
Zack Snyder's Next Movie Is A More Grounded Story About The LAPD
Snyder Is Helming A Straightforward Action Thriller
For his next film, Snyder is making an action movie about the LAPD. Snyder is reteaming with Netflix, his partners on Rebel Moon and Army of the Dead, for distribution. He’ll not only direct the movie, but also co-write the screenplay with frequent collaborator Kurt Johnstad, with whom he worked on 300, Rebel Moon, and a handful of other projects. Snyder’s new movie doesn’t have a title yet, and most other details are being kept under wraps, but an official logline states that the story will revolve around an elite LAPD unit contending with morality and corruption.
Why A Smaller-Scale Movie Is The Right Project For Snyder After Rebel Moon
Rebel Moon Suffered From Its Own Ambitions
Snyder’s critically panned last movie, Rebel Moon, collapsed under the weight of its own ambition. It was an attempt to jumpstart a new sprawling sci-fi universe like Star Wars or Dune, but it failed because it was entirely derivative of those existing franchises. It’s technically an original I.P., but there isn’t a single original idea in the whole movie — it’s just a mishmash of sci-fi tropes and clichés. It seemed like Snyder had hit a wall in his long-standing tradition of blockbuster filmmaking. He’d run out of exciting new things to do in the big-budget genre space.
His pivot to a totally different style of filmmaking is just what he needs. Switching to a smaller-scale story could be the perfect palate cleanser after Rebel Moon.
His pivot to a totally different style of filmmaking is just what he needs. Switching to a smaller-scale story could be the perfect palate cleanser after Rebel Moon. Snyder found himself in a rut with Rebel Moon; he’s been peddling the same basic brand — essentially an edgelord playing with action figures — for over two decades now. A grittier, more grounded movie about real people in the real world could be the project to finally get Snyder out of that rut and mature him as a filmmaker.
We Have Never Seen Zack Snyder Direct A Non-Fantastical Movie
Snyder Has Never Made A Realistic Movie Set In The Present Day
Snyder’s LAPD movie will mark a career first. He’s never made a non-fantastical movie; they all either take place in the future, in space, or in a world of magical realism. Dawn of the Dead, Snyder’s first movie (and still his best, according to Rotten Tomatoes), is about a zombie apocalypse — and his films only got more fantastical and far-fetched from there. 300 is an absurdly fictionalized retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae featuring supernatural elements, and Watchmen is a hard-R superhero movie set in an alternate timeline where America won the Vietnam War.
The Will Smith Movie That Changed Zack Snyder's Career Also Foreshadowed The Director's Highest-Grossing Film
Zack Snyder almost directed a Will Smith blockbuster, and the final film also contained a nod to what would become Snyder's highest-grossing movie.
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole is about talking owls. Sucker Punch is about a group of young women in a mental institution escaping to a series of fantasy worlds. Man of Steel is, of course, about an orphaned alien who comes to Earth, dons a red cape, and uses his laundry list of superhuman abilities to fight crime. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League see that red-caped alien teaming up with other superheroes to battle gods, monsters, and other aliens.
Snyder has also developed a screenplay for a 300 spinoff entitled Blood and Ashes, but it's unclear if it'll ever get made.
Since the downfall of Snyder’s DC Extended Universe, he’s been working on original stories, but they still haven’t been grounded in reality. Army of the Dead is a heist movie set in Vegas, but the crew pulls off the heist amidst hordes of zombies including intelligent zombies, zombie ringleaders, and robot zombies. Rebel Moon takes place in a galaxy far, far away, borrowing elements from Dune, Star Wars, Warhammer, and Heavy Metal magazine. This new LAPD action thriller will be the first grounded, non-fantastical movie of Zack Snyder’s entire career.
Zack Snyder
- Birthdate
- March 1, 1966
- Birthplace
- Green Bay, WI, USA
- Notable Projects
- Twilight of the Gods
