Filmstalker: Zack Snyder on The Dark Knight Returns

We are never far away from a Zack Snyder story these days, what with the Watchmen release just round the corner. Less than a week away people.

And someone has taken the opportunity to ask Snyder about the possibility of him taking on The Dark Knight Returns.

Zack Snyder talked about his desire to make a film of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, at the end of last year. The comic book sees an older Batman coming out of retirement, to save Gotham and take on a few old adversaries. The main problem then was the overwhelming success of The Dark Knight (Filmstalker review). He has been asked about it again though, and despite having just made the "unfilmable" Watchmen, he's not too sure how it would work.

I think the thing that's awesome about Dark Knight, like Watchmen, is that it is a complete and total experience, that was unlike anything anyone has ever seen, and still is. I think the big challenge for me would be — it's so 'montage-y' and so media thick, that you just have to — that's the techniques you'd have to develop and make work. But as far as the rest goes, the thing I'd be really interested in is that kind of Frank [Miller] narration over that cool action, that's a thing we haven't really seen in that context.

Snyder was talking to First Showing.net. The comic book does use TV footage to move the story along a lot. So I guess any film would be tied to that concept. Adapting it without those aspects would probably be a recipe for disaster.

I'd really like to see The Dark Knight Returns as the basis for a film. And Frank Miller's idea of Sylvester Stallone playing an older Batman is a great one. However I suspect that much like the comic book, we may have to fast forward a decade or two before it's even entertained. Christopher Nolan's success may have scuppered any chances of this one being made. Should we file this under films that will never be made? Or films that should never be made?

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I'll bite my knuckles for this one, it excites me that much.

I first read the comic when it initially came out, and if memory serves, at the time, there was a rumor bouncing round that Clint Eastwood was in discussions, to direct and star.

I think he would have been an excellent choice.

Times however change, and after watching the first two Nolan flicks, I honestly think that he has the scope and vision to pull it off, plus he has the understanding of the world that batman inhabits.

I'd like to see Nolan have a go, maybe in 15 years with Bale as an older Batman.

Just my two penneth.

Posted by: Mark | February 28, 2009 8:17 PM

Nolan and Bale making it in 15 years or so is a great idea. Probably one of the few ways it will see the light of day.

Clint Eastwood would have been a great choice a while back as well. The only downer about Stallone is his Judge Dredd connection.

Posted by: Louise | March 1, 2009 7:58 PM

I don't know, there are bound to be more directors than Nolan who could manage to tackle the project. His key was making a gripping thriller first and a Batman film second, it's been the other way around so far.

Snyder I think is a good choice, but perhaps Gerald McMorrow who directed Franklyn.

Posted by: Richard Brunton | March 1, 2009 8:50 PM

Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns” isn’t your typical Batman movie—mostly because it’s not a movie. The motion picture concept for the comic (short of a reboot) is utterly tied to Christopher Nolan’s cinematic conventions. Even though Miller’s storylines are dealing in government conspiracy theories with the central character emerging from dormancy (together with Two-Face and The Joker), for movie fans not willing to wait, their Batman doesn’t have any sort of museum smell.

But never mind that.

Granted, enthusiasm over Frank Miller’s work is earned and must be appreciated, if tempered. Miller walks the characters between intrigue and inscrutability, thoughtfully and imperfectly convoluted narratives where superheroes exult and collide with abandon. Although shifting motives of villainy and plot do pivot far enough away from Nolan’s filmic interpretation, Gotham remains a city of shadows and secrets with plenty of scores to be settled. Miller’s Gotham, however, pushes past the city’s history, positing its readers somewhere between the world-weary Bruce Wayne/Batman and the fresh-faced Carrie Kelly/Robin upon whom unkind realities are gradually dawning.

Does the Cape Crusader really belong in Frank Miller’s world? When you get right down to it, only Warner Bros will decide.

What we do know is that Christopher Nolan is an excellent wordsmith who understands that “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight” are engineered by adaptation into formal construction that’s never dead to form. Zack Snyder’s “300” bravely embraced the avant-garde of filmmaking without changing this paradigm, so his “Watchmen” is left to convince the studio that such a change is even possible.

Posted by: Frederick Richardson | March 2, 2009 9:41 PM