Brace Yourself – The SnyderVerse Might Not Be Buried After All

With the upcoming DCU on the way under DC Studios, it has become popular to declare Zack Snyder’s DCEU dead, and yet, it remains as alive and vibrant as ever. Snyder’s DCEU (often colloquially referred to as the SnyderVerse) began in 2013 with Man of Steel and its 2016 follow-up Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, buttheir polarized reception and Warner Bros. infamous mishandling of the franchise after the latter badly harmed its momentum. The SnyderVerse appeared to have gained a second chance with the release of Snyder’s cut of Justice League, titled Zack Snyder’s Justice League, in 2021, and Henry Cavill’s return as Superman in 2022’s Black Adam, but the founding of DC Studios that year and the announcement of the upcoming DCU reboot seemed to finally mark the end of the SnyderVerse.

However, looks can be deceiving, and in the two years since James Gunn’s forthcoming DC reboot was announced, the SnyderVerse has done something that abandoned franchises rarely accomplish. Put simply, despite a DC cinematic reboot being in the works, Snyder’s DCEU has maintained a consistent, visible, and often energetic presence in the public zeitgeist. Obviously, part of the credit for that goes to the well-known determination of Snyder’s devoted fanbase. By the same token, numerous other events have occurred in the past two years to keep the spotlight on the SnyderVerse from dying out. That, in turn, makes it not only fair but relevant to ask – is the SnyderVerse REALLY dead?

Zack Snyder Remains Closely Associated With DC (Despite Not Currently Making Any DC Movies)

Aside from the completion of his own Justice League movie over three years after the end of principal photography, Zack Snyder has not been actively involved with DC movies since 2017. However, you’d never guess that, considering how much Snyder and his subset of DC characters continue to be the elephant in the room for DC. Calls of #RestoreTheSnyderVerse, #SellSnyderVerseToNetflix, and every variation thereof continue to abound on social media, but even without that, Snyder remains a presence for DC despite years of WB trying to move on from his tenure.

One such example from 2023 came in the form of Snyder tweeting supportively for the then-upcoming release of Blue Beetle, which drew considerable attention despite Snyder’s lack of involvement with the film (and Blue Beetle being, at best, loosely connected to his DCEU.)

Snyder returned to the superhero spotlight again, and without a single superhero movie on the way, in 2024 with Snyder’s appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience. Snyder and Rogan’s discussion of Snyder’s DC movies included such topics as whether superheroes killing is ever an acceptable storytelling device, with Snyder stating “People are always like ‘Batman can’t kill’, so ‘Batman can’t kill’ is canon, and I’m like, ‘Well, the first thing I want to do when you say that is I want to see what happens!”, and that “You’re making your god irrelevant if he can’t be in that situation. He has to now deal with that.” The response to Snyder’s conversation with Rogan was as swift and polarized as the immediate aftermath of Batman v Superman’s release, and all of it from Snyder simply discussing superhero movies several years out from their release.

Even James Gunn’s upcoming DC reboot, formally titled the DCU, hasn’t managed to truly sever ties with Snyder’s DCEU. At a panel appearance promoting Creature Commandos at the 2024 New York Comic Con, Gunn stated that the DCU will maintain some nebulous connection to the DCEU, saying “There are references to things that happened in the past. And those references then become canon in the DCU because we mention them.” While it isn’t fully clear on what that will entail or how Gunn will facilitate it (Gunn having previously stated that Peacemaker season two will address the universe change from season one, via GamesRadar), the fact that the DC universe Snyder started still has some kind of connective tissue with Gunn’s DCU is bound to keep the former in the spotlight, with or without an active continuation on the way. Meanwhile, Snyder has also maintained a close connection to all things DC in ways both direct and indirect.

Snyder’s Superhero Commentary Is A Never-Ending Lightning Rod

Zack Snyder’s most recent superhero-related project came rather unexpectedly, with Snyder serving as a guest editor for Inverse’s superhero-themed issue for October 2024. In addition to penning a column outlining his love of comic books and superheroes for the issue, Snyder also conducted an interview with comic book legend Frank Miller, with the two discussing their shared philosophy of deconstructing the world’s most iconic superheroes. With the issue including other columns penned by other writers and edited by Snyder, covering everything from the topics of killing and sexuality as they relate to superheroes, the response naturally exploded into the zeitgeist.

As with Snyder’s Joe Rogan interview, his outlook on superheroes in the new issue of Inverse repelled some, was music to the ears of others, and everything in between. Yet the most relevant story of all from it is the one so few have zeroed in on – that being that, for all the talk of DC rebooting cinematically and the DCEU being a thing of the past, Zack Snyder and his DC saga reliably, regularly, and consistently re-emerge to become one of the biggest focal points of discussion of DC on film and the superhero genre collectively. It also seems that at least a few individuals in that world are starting to take notice of that ongoing trend.

Snyder’s DC Universe Is Still Being Heavily (& Profitably) Merchandised

As with any comic book movie franchise, Zack Snyder’s DCEU films have been merchandised extensively with action figures, tie-in comics, and the like. What’s really telling, though, is how much said merchandise is still being produced after the SnyderVerse’s ostensible end, along with who is cashing on it – namely, Todd McFarlane. Known as much for being an entrepreneur as he is a comic book titan, McFarlane wasted no time in producing Zack Snyder’s Justice League action figures for McFarlane Toys’ DC Multiverse line upon the movie’s release, which included the movie’s much more fearsome design of Steppenwolf. However, McFarlane Toys wasn’t done with the SnyderVerse yet.

Just ahead of 2024’s New York Comic Con, McFarlane Toys introduced a new line of action figures, which included action figures of heroes and villains from both Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Zack Snyder’s Justice League. McFarlane’s SnyderVerse toy line reportedly sold out in minutes, with even Darkseid actor Ray Porter getting a Darkseid figure from McFarlane himself. In perhaps a bit of a subtle statement regarding the long-term legacy of both versions of Justice League, McFarlane Toys Twitter/X page also identified the Darkseid figure as being drawn from “the Justice League movie”, with Darkseid having only appeared in the Snyder Cut.

The fact that McFarlane Toys determined that Snyder’s DCEU was worth producing an all-new line of action figures just in time for New York Comic Con indicates that McFarlane himself (and probably other toy or merchandising manufacturers) see enough popularity in Snyder’s DC franchise to continue merchandising from it. Indeed, the proof is in the pudding with how swiftly McFarlane’s Batman v Superman and Zack Snyder’s Justice League figures sold out, and is arguably the first real demonstrable block of data indicating continued popularity for Zack Snyder’s DCEU since the formation of DC Studios. That also speaks to the larger point of the SnyderVerse’s lifespan.

Many Still Want To See Zack Snyder’s DC Story Concluded – With Or Without A Reboot On The Way

For all the preparation for the DCU’s beginning with Creature Commandos and James Gunn’s Superman film, that has done little to kill interest in WB and DC seeing Snyder’s intended five movie arc through. What’s more, DC as an IP has the concept of Elseworlds and multiverse storytelling so embedded into its DNA, doing so wouldn’t require putting an end to any other DC movie or TV franchise, a fact that Snyder’s fanbase frequently points out in their advocacy of seeing the conclusion of his story.

More broadly, the fact that Snyder can continue to generate such buzz by simply talking about his already made DCEU movies without any being in active production is testimony to just how much of an impact they continue to have. On the business side of things, McFarlane Toys also merchandising Snyder’s DCEU films to such profitability also indicates they’ve maintained a presence in the public conscious to the extent that toy makers and other merchandising entities can still make quite a tidy profit from it.

It isn’t uncommon for fans to make calls for cancelled movie or TV franchises to be revived, with such endeavors occasionally bearing from. However, if it wasn’t clear already, it should be by now that there is something fundamentally different about Zack Snyder’s DCEU and the degree to which it has stayed prominent, relevant, popular, and within the epicenter of all things DC despite all the misfortune and studio mishandling thrown its way and the franchise itself having had the curtain closed on it in an official sense.

The SnyderVerse may have been ended by Warner Bros. Discovery and DC Studios in late 2022, but the last two years have shown that, whether we like it or not, the SnyderVerse it is anything but dead. Will the SnyderVerse, as its many fans wish, truly return if the life it has shown over the last two years continue for the next five? If the Snyder Cut is eternal proof of anything, it’s that “never” is a word that doesn’t belong on the infinite earths of DC’s Multiverse.

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