Fans like to imagine there’s some huge beef between Zack Snyder and James Gunn. After all, a surface glance at the last year sees Gunn clearing away the last remnants of the SnyderVerse in favor of his new and rebooted DCU. Maybe it would make sense for there to be some bad blood?
The reality is that the two are good friends. Gunn wrote Snyder’s breakout 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, earlier this year Snyder described him as a “buddy”, and Gunn said he may have made an appearance at May’s “SnyderCon” if he wasn’t busy with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 press (but he did make a donation to the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention).
All of which means it’s not exactly eyebrow-raising that Snyder has said he’s “looking forward” to the release of Gunn-era DCU movie Blue Beetle:
With Snyder having indicated his excitement, many of his fans are saying he’s already done a better job hyping up this movie than the Warner Bros. marketing department:
But there are still some trying to pit the two friends against one another:
It’s also notable that some Snyder fans have been so dead set against the Gunn-era DCU that they’ve been brigading every new release, so this puts them in a somewhat tricky position:
Beyond all this, it’s also great to see that Snyder’s heart is in the right place when it comes to representation and diversity in superhero movies:
For his part, Snyder doesn’t seem particularly angry about not being involved with the DC universe any more. After all, he got to finish Justice League precisely as he intended, and currently has full creative control over his upcoming sci-fi fantasy epic Rebel Moon over at Netflix.
So the next time you see Snyder and Gunn being portrayed as bitter enemies, just remember that quite the opposite is true.
Blue Beetle hits theaters on Aug. 18.