“We just don’t like the idea”: WB Set Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman To Fail As Director Reveals Studio’s Impossible Demand That Doomed DCEU
Mia Phillips
Updated on April 02, 2026
It has been quite a while since Zack Snyder and Warner Bros. had been talked about in the same sentence. Since the release of the filmmaker’s version of Justice League was demanded to be released by the fans, things have been tense. Even so, the failed DCEU will always be part of Snyder’s legacy in cinema, which, more often than not, will overshadow all of his wonderful creations.
The director recently opened up about where it all started to go wrong for the now-obsolete franchise. In a recent podcast conversation, Snyder revealed that despite him trying his best with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the MPA would come around and tag his project with an R rating, which would make him go through so many revisions that it almost destroyed his vision for his story.
Zack Snyder Revealed How Batman v Superman Would Constantly Get R Ratings For The Stupidest Reason
The DCEU may be no more, but the franchise will always remain in the minds of comic book fans across the globe, along with Zack Snyder‘s contributions to it. Under the supervision of the filmmaker, the cinematic universe had started to flourish, that was, until the release of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was released, which set it on a collision course to the ground.
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In a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, the host sat down with the Watchmen director to talk about his life and career thus far in the film industry. During their conversation, the filmmaker also touched upon the subject of the public backlash that his film mentioned above received, which he said wasn’t the only problem he had to face.
He further elaborated, revealing that despite several revisions to the film, the board would still give the film an R Rating, and the reason was that both Henry Cavill and Ben Affleck were fighting each other as their respective characters in it, which was the entire narrative of the project. He said:
SUGGESTED“I remember the ratings board said, ‘We just don’t like the idea of Batman fighting Superman,’ was like, ‘That has nothing to do with the ratings.’ They kept making it an R rating. They kept coming back with an R for us, and like what do you want us to cut out? And they were like, ‘Well, we just don’t like the idea of Batman fighting Superman.’ I can’t take that out! That’s the movie.”
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This would prove to be quite constricting for the filmmaker, which trickled down further into the future projects of the franchise, which ultimately led to its downfall.
Why Was There Public Backlash Against Batman v Superman?
The biggest reason for the backlash this film received stemmed from the alleged perversion of the character of The Dark Knight. Snyder’s version of Batman is ruthless who wouldn’t think twice before killing a criminal, which wasn’t comic-accurate.
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Along with that, Batman v Superman had to go through a lot of alterations to make it to the PG-13 rating that Warner Bros. wanted, which, in turn, led to a lot of things being left unexplained or creating a glaring plothole in the film’s narrative. In the end, the alterations, as well as the general direction of the film, changed so much that it became something different entirely.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, streaming on Max.
