The Spotlight: Ben Affleck says 'Justice League' is 'Zach Snyder's movie,' but that Joss Whedon 'made it better'
(image via justiceleague)
It's been a pretty wild road for Warner Bros. and the DC Extended Universe.
While big brother Marvel Studios has pumped out hit after hit building the Marvel Cinematic Universe into a juggernaut it's been rocky for WB.
2016's "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" was a critical failure and its dark tones divided fans. Its shortcomings, along with those of 2013's "Man of Steel," put an incredible amount of pressure on the 2017 followup "Justice League."
When the production lost director Zach Snyder due to a tragic family matter, the studio brought in MCU veteran Joss Whedon (The Avengers, The Avengers: Age of Ultron) to finish it out. Whedon also co-wrote the script with Chris Terrio, who worked on "Batman v Superman."
Promoting the Nov. 17 release for "Justice League," Ben Affleck, the DCEU's Batman, was asked how the two directing styles felt on set.
"Well, Zach cast this movie," Affleck told FOX 5 DC. "He made the two movies prior. This movie is heavily informed by all the work that went into it ahead of time. Including design and script and everything else. It's Zach's movie. When Zach had to step away for personal reasons, obviously some things are more important than movies. We got lucky. We had a guy come in who kind of worked off Zach's template and also added his own flavor and his own stuff to it and I think made the movie better.
"Although I wouldn't necessarily want two directors on every movie, I do think it was an interesting way of doing it. The whole was greater than the sum of its parts."
Joining the DCEU as The Flash, Ezra Miller expanded on Affleck's comments.
"I definitely think its a realization of a cohesive vision that comes mainly from Zach and comes from the cumulative process of the building of the DCEU," said Miller. "I definitely feel something that majorly reflects what Zach showed me in early comic frames in a lot of the movie.
"What's funny is that I think Zach was doing a much lighter, more comedic more Whedon-y thing and then Joss stepped on and was fulfilling Zach's vision. It's this incredible instance of two artists in collaboration and honoring each other's work."
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