Zack Snyder Confirms His Next Movie Is The Fountainhead

Screen Rant

Zack Snyder Confirms His Next Project Is The Fountainhead

By Dan Zinski

Published May 28, 2018

Zack Snyder will move on from the DCEU's comic book movies by tackling The Fountainhead, an adaptation of Ayn Rand's controversial 1943 novel.

Zack Snyder has revealed his next project will be The Fountainhead, an adaptation of Ayn Rand’s 1943 novel. After shepherding the DCEU over the past few years, beginning with 2013’s Man of Steel, Synder will now move away from the comic book franchise, though not necessarily of his own volition.. The director’s last DCEU film, Justice League, was controversially taken from his hands mid-production and finished by Joss Whedon, resulting in a much different film than the one many fans had envisioned.

Justice League went on to secure a disappointing box office run, grossing only $657 million worldwide. Fan displeasure with Whedon’s version of the film has led to widespread calls for Warner Bros. to release Snyder’s own cut. In 2016, the director revealed he would follow up Justice League with The Last Photograph, a drama about a war correspondent and a special ops soldier journeying to Afghanistan after being prompted by a photograph. However, Snyder has apparently put The Last Photograph on hold in order to pursue a different project.

Responding to a fan question on the social media site Vero (via @ChrisRa7en), where Snyder handles most of his fan interaction these days, the filmmaker confirmed his next project will instead be an adaptation of Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead.

Published in 1943, The Fountainhead follows an individualistic architect named Howard Roark who refuses to compromise his artistic principles in the face of the establishment. Initially unsuccessful, the book would go on to develop a huge following, establishing Rand as an influential – and controversial – writer. Like her book, Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead remains an important text among right-leaning political thinkers, and Rand, with her Objectivist philosophy emphasizing the importance of great individuals over the collective, remains a divisive figure.

The Fountainhead was first made into a film by Warner Bros in 1949, starring Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal. Although Rand herself appreciated the film, it was not a hit, and now it has a reputation as being a so-bad-it's-good movie. Rand’s Atlas Shrugged was adapted as three films from 2011 to 2014 but the trilogy was itself a massive critical and financial failure, with all three films grossing only $8.8 million in total on an overall reported budget of $35 million.

Given the subject matter and point-of-view of The Fountainhead, it’s perhaps significant that Zack Snyder would choose to tackle this project in the wake of Justice League. Some may see Snyder as a kind of Howard Roark figure, an uncompromising artist who refuses to give in to the safe corporate mentality that seeks to blunt his vision. Certainly, those who still clamor for the Snyder Cut have portrayed the director as such an artist. Interestingly enough, some already read Randian messages into Snyder's films, particularly Man of Steel and Batman V Superman.