By Joshua Tyler
| Published
In 2012, Christopher Nolan finished his Batman trilogy with The Dark Knight Rises. That meant when it came to superheroes, Warner Bros. had nothing. Batman had been a huge hit, but attempts to make something else out of other DC Superheroes weren’t just failures; they were punchlines.
At the same time, legal issues with Superman meant Warner Bros. needed to make a Superman movie quickly to retain the rights. The studio was legally obligated to begin production by 2011 or risk losing key elements of the character.
Warner Bros. had seen the money Marvel was making and wanted their version of that success, only faster. The plan wasn’t to mirror Marvel’s slow build. It was to go big immediately. And that’s exactly what they did.
Why The Snyderverse Failed
Zack Snyder was hired to direct Man of Steel in October 2010. His selection was driven by a combination of studio urgency, Christopher Nolan’s influence, and Snyder’s prior success in adapting stylized comic book material with 300 and Watchmen.
Zack Snyder’s DC Cinematic Universe began with potential. In 2013, Man of Steel rebooted Superman for a modern audience, carrying the weight of not just relaunching a character but laying the foundation for an entire interconnected universe.
Man of Steel was brooding, self-serious, dimly lit, and violent. A sharp departure from Christopher Reeve’s hopeful hero. Superman kills Zod. No banishment to the Phantom Zone this time. Buildings collapsed in scenes that evoke 9/11 imagery, killing thousands.
It was controversial, but it got people talking. The film earned $668 million worldwide on a $225 million budget. People seemed to really like muscle-bound Henry Cavill as the new Clark Kent. Man of Steel was not a bomb, but also not a huge breakout hit. It was solid enough to move forward.
Batman v Superman Begins The Snyderverse
Instead of following it with Man of Steel 2, Warner Bros. and Snyder decided to leap straight into Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. This was the real beginning of the Snyderverse, an attempt to kickstart the Justice League franchise by packing in as many characters and setups as possible.
Released in 2016, Batman v Superman brought Ben Affleck in as an older, grizzled Batman and introduced Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. On paper, it should’ve been a billion-dollar slam dunk. It wasn’t. The movie made $873 million worldwide on a roughly $300 million budget.
That sounds like a win until you compare it to Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War, which was released the same year and made $1.15 billion. Or The Avengers with $1.5 billion, or Iron Man 3’s $1.2 billion.
WB expected a juggernaut; instead, they got a slog. Critics hated Batman v Superman. Rotten Tomatoes scores sit at 29%, and many reviews pointed to incoherent plotting, oppressive tone, and an overstuffed script that spent more time teasing future movies than telling a compelling story.
Audiences were split. Snyder had defenders, especially online, but casual moviegoers were exhausted, and with good reason. The film crammed Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Lex Luthor, Doomsday, a dream sequence with future Flash, Darkseid teases, and a flash drive full of Justice League origin reels into one movie. No one had time to breathe.
WB hit the panic button, but instead of slowing down and reassessing the universe’s direction, they did the opposite.
Suicide Squad was already in post-production, and the studio took that opportunity to step in. David Ayer’s dark, grounded crime movie was re-edited by a trailer company and turned into a neon-colored mess. That film still made $747 million, but the backlash was immediate and loud. It was another divisive movie, another critical failure.
Justice League Destroys Lives
Then came Justice League. Zack Snyder originally envisioned Justice League as a two-part saga, beginning with the League’s formation and ending with a battle against Darkseid.
Before filming concluded, a horrific tragedy struck: Snyder’s daughter Autumn died by suicide in early 2017. She was only 20. Snyder left the project shortly after. WB brought in Joss Whedon to finish the film.
Back then, Joss Whedon, as the mind behind Avengers, was viewed as something of a superhero messiah. People were excited. Whedon rewrote large portions of the script and reshot over half the movie.
The tone shifted from mythic to sitcom. Superman’s mustache became a meme. What was supposed to be DC’s Avengers moment turned into a Frankenstein film with two voices, two tones, and no clear direction.
Justice League was released in November 2017. It bombed. The final gross was $657 million worldwide, less than Man of Steel, with a similar budget. It lost an estimated $60 million for Warner Bros.
Even worse, the behind-the-scenes turmoil became public. Ray Fisher, who played Cyborg, alleged misconduct by Whedon and accused studio executives of covering it up. WB launched an internal investigation, but the public narrative was already set: the Snyderverse was falling apart. It destroyed the career of Joss Whedon, who is now persona non grata in Hollywood.
The Snyderverse Unravels
After that, things unraveled. Ben Affleck stepped away from playing Batman and from directing his planned solo film. Henry Cavill’s Superman went into limbo. WB began canceling or retooling projects like The Flash, Cyborg, and Green Lantern Corps.
Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman spinoff stayed separate in tone and was a hit in 2017, earning $822 million and widespread acclaim. It was the exception, not the rule. Wonder Woman 2, titled Wonder Woman 1984, would not do well, at all.
WB might have pulled the plug on the Snyderverse sooner, but in between failures, they kept finding barely enough success to try again.
#ReleaseTheSnyderCut
In 2020, three years after Justice League’s release, the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut campaign finally broke through. Fans, bolstered by leaks and cast support, pushed hard. WB, looking to drive subscriptions for HBO Max, gave Snyder $70 million to finish his version.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League premiered in March 2021. At four hours long, it restored character arcs, reinstated cut villains, and ended with a massive tease of what was to come. Critically, it fared far better than the theatrical version, 72% on Rotten Tomatoes, and drew strong engagement online.
There were caveats. The Snyder Cut wasn’t released theatrically. Its viewership numbers were opaque. And most importantly, it was too late.
WB had already greenlit Matt Reeves’ rebooted The Batman with Robert Pattinson. The Flash was in production with a reset built into the plot. The new studio heads at Warner Bros. Discovery made it clear: the Snyderverse was over.
The Snyderverse’s Legacy
Despite the Snyder Cut’s success with fans, it didn’t translate into a revived franchise or cross over to interest anyone outside what some were now beginning to view as a full-on Zack Snyder cult.
There were no sequels. No restored roadmap. No continuation of Snyder’s teased apocalypse world with evil Superman and ragtag resistance fighters. Outside of those Snyder cultists, it’s hard to believe anyone would have enjoyed that anyway. We want Batman, not Mad Max.
WB shifted toward a multiverse strategy, greenlighting unrelated projects like Joker, The Batman, and Blue Beetle. Eventually, James Gunn and Peter Safran were brought in to reboot the entire DC Universe from scratch, starting with Superman in 2025. Gunn’s Superman is a hit, out-earning Snyder’s attempts.
Looking back now, it’s clear the Snyderverse failed not because of one bad movie, but because of misaligned goals, rushed execution, and constant studio interference.
Snyder had a coherent vision, but it wasn’t universally accessible. He treated his heroes like gods, not people. The world was always ending, and the sun rarely shone. For casual fans, and even many hardcore ones, it was all too much. Meanwhile, Warner Bros. kept trying to pivot mid-stride, reshuffling, recutting, and rebooting without giving any one direction time to succeed.
The Snyderverse’s legacy is as a cautionary tale about what happens when a studio chases someone else’s success without understanding why they succeeded in the first place.
Zack Snyder has moved on from the Snyderverse now. He tried making a Battle Beyond the Stars knockoff for Netflix, called Rebel Moon. That was probably Snyder’s last chance. Rebel Moon flopped, and Zack’s unlikely to be trusted with another big Hollywood budget for anything, let alone a superhero film.
Snyder fans may never give up, but the Snyderverse is over. In the end, it’s likely to be forgotten as it’s overshadowed by future successes. Or at least that’s what Warner Bros. hopes.
