Last updated: March 9, 2021
Here's every one of Zack Snyder's upcoming movies and TV shows. There are few mainstream directors making films either as polarizing or visually distinctive as Snyder right now. Most, if not all, of his comic book superhero adaptations inspire just as much fierce criticism as they do impassioned defenses and praise, and even his non-superhero offerings (like Sucker Punch) have typically given rise to an equally divided response. One imagines Snyder tends to expect as much going in: when you decide to adapt landmark stories like Watchmen or re-imagine Superman's origin story for the 21st century (and them pair him off against Batman), you just know you're going to be stepping on some toes.
While he's rarely one to shy away from controversial or challenging subject matter, there have been a few occasions where even Snyder decided his projects were a little too volatile to carry on through to fruition. Most notably, the filmmaker raised more than a few eyebrows when he revealed his plans to turn writer Ayn Rand's infamous ode to Objectivism, the 1943 novel The Fountainhead, into a movie (and, later, a miniseries) in 2016. In a wise decision, he's shifted the project over to the back-burner until further notice, citing the present political climate as a major motivating factor in his decision.
Even with that, Snyder currently has a handful of projects in active development, many of which are going to premiere as streaming exclusives on HBO Max and Netflix. Here's everything on his docket at the moment, including a slower-developing passion project that Snyder may or may not return to in the foreseeable future.
Zack Snyder's Justice League (March 18)
The problems of Justice League have already been heavily documented, but here's a refresher: when Snyder's second DCEU movie, 2016's Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, proved to be even more polarizing than his first one, 2013's Man of Steel, it understandably left Warner Bros. in a state of panic. The studio was already gearing up to begin production on Snyder's Justice League a few weeks after that and had announced the director would return for Justice League 2, so they couldn't really stop the train at that point. After Snyder turned in his initial cut of the film and stepped down during post-production (in the wake of a personal tragedy) in early 2017, WB turned to Avengers director Joss Whedon to write and oversee heavy reshoots for DC's own superhero crossover event. The resulting theatrical cut was widely perceived as a Frankenstein's monster of a movie, and many Snyder fans subsequently started petitioning for the release of the director's initial version of the DCEU team-up.
Everyone will get to see what that looks like when Zack Snyder's Justice League officially begins streaming on HBO Max on March 18, 2021. With reports that Whedon filmed as much as 80 pages of new material for Justice League, the Snyder Cut will end up looking and feeling like a completely different thing. It's also confirmed to include subplots largely or entirely dropped from the theatrical version, including much of Cyborg's story thread, the introduction of the DC super-villain Darkseid, as well as a battle between the Amazons and the villain Steppenwolf. Tonally, Zack Snyder's Justice League ought to hew pretty closely to the operatic vibe and grandiose scope of his other DCEU films, but probably with the rich narrative development many feel make his Ultimate Edition of Batman v. Superman superior to the shorter theatrical edit. Speaking of runtime, this new version of Justice League will be long — specifically, it will run for four hours. The film was set to debut as a multi-hour series before Warner Bros. decided against it. What's more, the film received an additional $70 million for Snyder to complete post-production, which included visual effects, editing, and filming new material that brought in Jared Leto's Joker from David Ayer's Suicide Squad into the story. While the film will more than likely thrill hardcore fans of the Snyder Cut, the director revealed Warner Bros. doesn't seem interested in doing Justice League 2 with him in the director's chair.
Army of the Dead (May 21)
Four years after making his feature directorial debut on 2004's Dawn of the Dead remake, Snyder planned to return to the zombie genre with Army of the Dead, an original zombie action movie he had intended to produce only, with Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. (The Thing 2011) directing. The project nearly began shooting in 2009 before Warner Bros. pulled the plug, citing concerns about the film's growing budget at the time when the 2007 financial crisis was still a recent event. It's probably for the best too: in its previous form, the Army of the Dead script included elements like an exploitative (and tasteless) subplot involving male zombies raping human women to create human-zombie hybrids. Ten years later, Netflix acquired the rights to the movie from WB and set Snyder to direct from the new script draft he'd written with Shay Hatten (John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum) and Joby Harold (King Arthur: Legend of the Sword).
Plotwise, Army of the Dead will follow a group of mercenaries as they try to execute a heist on a Las Vegas casino after the city has been overrun with zombies and quarantined from the rest of the world. The film also stars Dave Bautista, Omari Hardwick, and Ella Purnell among several others. It'll be released to Netflix on May 21, 2021. It's also the latest Netflix original movie to revolve around a diverse team of operatives carrying out covert missions after Michael Bay's 6 Underground and Gina Prince-Bythewood's The Old Guard, so the question is whether the combination of Snyder's visual flair and zombies will be enough to make Army of the Dead feel like more than just the latest addition to what has curiously become the streaming service's brand of action-thriller. As for the theory the film is a stealth sequel to Dawn of the Dead, it's been described as being more of a spiritual sequel.
Norse Mythology Anime Series
Even with two films in post-production and launching very soon, Snyder is lending his talents to another upcoming Netflix project. An untitled anime series based in the world of Norse mythology, the show will reunite the filmmaker with his frequent storyboard artist Jay Oliva and promises to bring "the iconic characters and stories of Norse mythology to life in [Snyder's] inimitable style," according to Netflix head of anime programming John Derderian. So, for anyone who's ever wanted to see the ancient mythological characters that inspired Marvel's Thor in their original forms and brought to life via animation that recalls the vibrant - and violent - style of the 300 movies (especially 300: Rise of an Empire, which Oliva did storyboard work on and Snyder co-wrote), this is one to keep an eye on.
Other Projects
Snyder has been keeping busy. In 2021 alone, the director will have Justice League and Army of the Dead releasing on HBO Max and Netflix, respectively. Other projects Snyder is working on is The Last Photograph, a movie about a wartime photographer who joins forces with a special ops soldier while working in Afghanistan. Snyder has been trying to get the script (which he co-wrote with his 300 and Rise of an Empire co-writer Kurt Johnstad) into production for much of the last ten years, and even had Oscar-winners Christian Bale and Sean Penn loosely attached to star at one point. Snyder will also venture into the world of animated television, signing on to direct two episodes of Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas, an anime spinoff of Army of the Dead that will explore the early days of the zombie attack. He will also executive produce the series.
Also on his radar is a Napoleon movie written by a friend of his (Snyder didn't name them) and done "in the form of Scarface." This isn't the first time Snyder has expressed interest in making a historical epic based in either the late 18th or early 19th century either, having previously talked about making a 300-style adventure inspired by Emanuel Leutze's famous 1851 painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware River with the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.
Lastly, although he's pushed his adaptation of The Fountainhead to the side, Snyder (by the sound of things) hasn't wholly given up on it, either. As he told CBD, "It’s still important to me, but it’s a really touchy subject right now." He went on to address the original novel's politics, adding "People will think it’s hardcore right wing propaganda, but I don’t view it like that. I just think the story is super fun and crazy and melodramatic about architecture and sex.” Take that as you will. In addition to Snyder's growing plate of projects, he recently expressed interest in directing a King Arthur movie, one that he described to Minutemen as being more of a "faithful retelling" of the legend. However, a King Arthur film has not been confirmed yet and it sounds like more of an idea Snyder is currently toying with. Whether the movie is ever given the greenlight remains to be seen, but Snyder has plenty of films and TV shows to work on in the meantime.