Zack Snyder Gave James Wan His Blessing For Aquaman

Aquaman director James Wan reveals that Zack Snyder gave the film his seal of approval after he showed Snyder an early version of the movie. The DCEU's inaugural director, the filmmaker helmed three film installments in the franchise such as 2013's Man of Steel, 2016's Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and 2017's Justice League (although the movie was extensively reshot by Joss Whedon).

Despite kicking off the DCEU, Snyder is no longer involved creatively with the franchise. Much of what he's set up narratively doesn't seem like it will come to fruition at least in the near future with Warner Bros. focusing on standalone movies instead of team-ups and ensemble projects. Nonetheless, Wan says Snyder is one of the very first people who saw Aquaman after he showed Snyder his director's cut, and apparently, much like most of the public, he liked it.

Speaking with Collider's Steven Weintraub for a Q&A session in light of the continued success of Aquaman, Wan shared that Snyder gave the film its seal of approval - something that a lot of fans of the Man of Steel director will appreciate. The cut Snyder saw didn't have the completed VFX work, but it didn't seem to take away from his viewing experience.

Yeah, I showed Zack [Snyder] my Directors Cut pretty much right after I finished it and he gave me his thumbs up. He was really complementary about it. He basically gave his blessing to me to go finish the movie, because he knew how huge of an undertaking I had with the visual effects. What he saw was a lot of blue screen, a lot of pre-viz and a lot of storyboards. You photograph your storyboard’s and you cut it into the film and so it was very very rough and crude. But, I think the human element is there that played and I think he and Debbie [Snyder] were very complementary about it. They gave us their blessing.

Snyder was the proponent behind Jason Momoa's casting - something that the actor repeatedly emphasized during Aquaman's global press tour, and it was nice on Wan's side to approach Snyder and show an early cut of Arthur Curry's standalone. This is also the reason why he still has a producer credit in the flick despite not really having any creative input on it - at least not on its final cut. But since he was still actively involved in the franchise when Wan first started developing the story, there's a good chance that the two directors casually discussed what's going down in the project. While some might assume that the change in tone in the film is to address criticisms about previous DCEU movies, particularly Snyder's, what ended on the big screen was always what Wan intended Aquaman to be.

Following Aquaman, the DCEU will, however, continue to deviate from Snyder and what he started in the franchise with a string of films that he wasn't involved in any form such as David F. Sandberg's Shazam!, Todd Phillips' Joker (although separate from the established lore) and Cathy Yan's Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn). He'll have producer credit for Wonder Woman 1984, however. Even though it appears like Aquaman and Wonder Woman will be the face of the franchise moving forward, Snyder's stamp will continue to be with the DCEU.