Zack Snyder is trying to change the world one movie at a time. With films like “300,” “Watchmen,” “Sucker Punch” and the new “Superman,” the super hero world has officially been altered. “Sucker Punch” had a successful opening weekend, landing at #2 at the box office, pretty impressive if you ask us. We sat down with Zack Snyder as well as his wife Deborah, who produced this film.
Zack talks about the fun of making “Sucker Punch” as well as his next film, “Superman.” If you’re a movie lover like we are here at Global Grind, you’re going to love this one.
GG: Zack, this is your first original work, can you tell us how you came up with this concept and what was your inspiration?
ZS: I’d written a script a long time ago before I’d made any movies and in it, there was a sequence where this girl is forced to dance by these bad guys and she doesn’t want to do it, but they’re going to kill her if she doesn’t do it and so she has this fantasy that she’s somewhere else while it’s happening. Like on an adventure in her mind. So I re-read it about 10 years ago and it was a bunch of crap, but this one bit is interesting where the girl goes on this [adventure].
My buddy Steve who went to art center with me, we met for coffee and started talking about it and next thing I knew we had sort of come up with an idea for a story but we didn’t write it down right away, we talked about it, but never wrote it down. Then right when we finished shooting “Watchmen” we started writing it. And we wrote it pretty quickly because we’d talked about it so much. And then here we are.
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GG: In coming up with the movie you said you worked with writer Steve Shibuya and you could see lots of Asian-American and Asian iconography even in the casting and whatnot. Was that a conscious decision from him or from yourself?
ZS: I’d say that I probably put more of that in the movie than Steve did, even though Steve is really Japanese (Laughs). Maybe because I’m not Japanese the influence of that stuff is stronger on me being American and having an interest in that direction while he’s just like ‘Whatever, that’s just how it is’ and I’m like ‘No this is crazy and exotic and cool!’ Although it is stuff that we talked about.
GG: In terms of casting Vanessa Hudgens, who’s half-Asian and Jamie Chung, was that a conscious thing?
ZS: Yeah, I guess in some ways. It was weird actually, Jamie came in and just did an amazing little read and we were like ‘Oh! Jamie’s in the movie.’
DS: Vanessa came in and we knew her because of the kids from “High School Musical” and I don’t think we expected what we got from her. When she came in it was an emotional scene that she was reading and she was amazing! We were like ‘Wow, this is a different side!’ We loved the idea that we were gonna get to show her [a side of her] that no one’s seen yet. And she gave it 100%.
GG: And Emily Browning… how did you discover her?
ZS: I had been a fan of Emily from “Lemony Snicket’s” and I just thought she was cool.
DS: We were working in Australia for “Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole.”
ZS: And she flew over and met with us and she did an amazing read and I think when we brought her in we brought her in to read Rocket’s and then when we got home I was like ‘Y’know Emily’s got this thing that is impossible to describe. I wonder if she can sing.’ So I called them up and she did a version “Killing me Softly” and it was awesome.
DS: It was originally one song that we wanted her to sing and then when Maris and Tyler got ahold of her and we started picking other songs, they kept saying ‘Well what if Emily did this song?’ and we ended up doing three songs [with her] when we planned only for one song.
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GG: Your films share a certain quality. How are you choosing what you pursue these days?
ZS: I guess it’s difficult in some ways. We were talking about a few different things and then “Superman” came along and Chris called us up and said ‘Hey do you wanna have lunch and talk about Superman?’ And we were like “Oh, that sounds cool.” (Laughs.) “Superman” seemed to make a lot of sense for me after doing “Watchmen.” Making “Watchmen” gives you the opportunity to really sort of understand superheroes in a way that I don’t know that a lot of the modern superhero movies that are being made can. “Superman” demands a level of sophistication in order for him to be relevant and cool and modern.
DS: It came out of nowhere really in a way.
ZS: Yeah.
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GG: As an artist, what does “Superman” give you to explore that other comic books, “Watchmen” in particular, which was such a superhero deconstruction, don’t?
ZS: I do love superhero movies and the genre and “Watchmen” is not a love affair movie, you know? Which is fine, I have no problem with that. When you intellectualize it, it makes sense. But it does give you a chance to sort of re-fall in love with the world and I guess that’s the thing that I’m into.
DS: He’s also transcendent of a comic book hero. It’s funny because right after we signed on we were in Europe doing some press for “Guardians” and just walking around the streets and seeing t-shirts, whether we were in Italy or London and that big “S” shield is everywhere. It’s hit pop culture in a way that’s larger than just being a comic book hero. It’s all over the place.
ZS: Didn’t they say about the Superman logo is the most recognizable symbol in the world? That’s crazy. Make a movie about that! (Laughs.)
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GG: You said recently in the L.A. Times that when you’re looking at your vision of “Superman,” that you don’t want to look back. Can you talk a little bit more about your vision and how you’re going to take that character to the next level?
ZS: I can’t talk specifically about it, of course, because its too secret. But I can say it’s beyond secret, you can’t even imagine how secret it is (Laughs.) We’re talking about it now, it’s crazy. But I will say that I think the challenge is that you have a character that is the most iconic graphic character. It’d be like if we were making a movie about the Greek gods and that everyone had made movies about all the other gods but Zeus. No one had made a Zeus movie because they were like ‘I don’ t know what to do with him, he’s too awesome.’
I kind of feel like we’re at this point where all these minor gods have movies and franchises and stuff like that and it just seems to me that it’s time to understand why all these things exist. By the way I’m a fan of the Iron Man movies but really!? Iron Man? A whole franchise and tons of movies? “Iron Man 4”? Fair enough. But the fact that we don’t have a Superman movie in the midst of this is crazy.
