Written by Tyrone BruinsmaIn today's culture of cinema, it's been largely determined that genuine artistic films are made as low budget indie works produced by A24 and anything in the realm of "Blockbuster Cinema" is little more than corporate mandated, committee produced, focus tested garbage. Then again the dumber side "cultural discourse" blame a studio and/or creator or a film's "progressive agenda" as some sinister intent by corporation or artist. This is also the same group who throw a bigoted tantrum whenever someone who is gay, trans, black or a woman exists in media and insists everyone else is the crybaby snowflake. Anyway, the concept of of auteur blockbusters is rarely spoken about due to Hollywood largely not giving capital A artist filmmakers that kind of control or project anymore. But even in the golden age of Hollywood, filmmakers like Cecil B. DeMille operated as visionary sole creators with effects heavy blockbuster films like The Ten Commandments. For the record "auteur" was developed as a theory by French Academics as to classify filmmakers who had a style distinctly their own and whose creative intent was the lifeblood of their body of work. There have been counter arguments to this with the most famous example being "Death of the Author", which stated that it doesn't matter what a work means - an audience takes away whatever message they intend. So while it might seem that in the 21st Century that visionary artistic directors aren't present anymore, that's not entirely true. Though there are large $200 Million blockbusters made in collaboration with about a dozen people whose group goal is "make a fun movie", there's been plenty that are lead by singular driven filmmakers. Examples include Gore Verbinski on the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, Mel Gibson's directorial work like Passion of the Christ and Hacksaw Ridge, Alfonso Cuarón on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Wachowskis on The Matrix films and Cloud Atlas or George Lucas on The Star Wars Prequels. The most recent auteur blockbuster attempt was this year was awesome, but underperforming The Northman from historical horror specialist Robert Eggers. There's even examples of actors holding more creative vision on a film project like Angelina Jolie on Maleficent or Vin Diesel on the Chronicles of Riddick and Fast and Furious franchise. So yes, auteur filmmakers can still operate at a blockbuster level with studio money to play with and I think they deserve some appreciation. That's not to say auteur films are automatically great as many M. Night Shyamalan films are solely his vision, but 3 of his personal films (Lady in the Water, The Visit, Glass) are just metaphors for people not understanding his visionary status. Some auteur masters like Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick made great films, but Hitchcock was also a perverted stunted control freak of his actresses and Kubrick made his cast emotionally and physically suffer for his "perfect shots". There's also much to be said about auteur cinema being largely dominant by white men due to the old foundations of Hollywood and its stubbornness to grow (but has been getting better at slowly). So, yes: auteur cinema isn't some untouchable regime of cinematic classification. You can make an auteur film and it suck. You can make an auteur film and be a terrible person to work with. But at the end of the day, these films are the creations of the artists with a vision. So let's take a look at the 10 Best Auteur Blockbusters of the last 20 years. And I'm listing them by their director's because that's how auteur kind of works. 10. SAM RAIMI - Spider-Man + Spider-Man 2Horror specialist Sam Raimi made a name for himself back in 1981 with the shocking horror film The Evil Dead. The film was an indie success that showed Raimi's distinct directorial gift in camera work, tone and a genre-leading him to make other unique work like 2 great sequels (Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness), Darkman and The Quick and the Dead. Then after James Cameron, David Fincher and Chris Columbus failed to get their Spider-Man films up, Sony brought in Raimi to handle the web-slinger's blockbuster film. Raimi brought the distinctive tone, direction and personal love of the comic books into his superhero films to make what are both big crowd pleasing box office hits and works wholly Raimi's too. The films use camera work and editing inspired by comic books, contain Raimi's horror/comedy sensibilities and act like monster movies. The Spider-Man 2 scene where Doc Oc first becomes a full monster is both a terrifying sequence and joyously piece of dark comedy that would've been right at home in his Evil Dead trilogy. Unfortunately, Raimi wasn't able to make Spider-Man 3 his own film due to Sony's interference and forced in character of Venom. While that film still carries Raimi's humor, horror and style-it doesn't count as his own project. It makes sense that after Spider-Man 3, he'd make a truly Raimi film in the form of the 2009 supernatural horror movie Drag Me to Hell. Luckily, Raimi would make two more projects with more control given to him in the form of 2013's Oz The Great and Powerful, and this year's Dr Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. I think the special ingrident in making Spider-Man 1 and 2 true Raimi films isn't just the comic book style, use of horror and comedy or camerawork-but how Raimi handles the character of Peter Parker. Raimi understand his human, flawed and nerdy hero better than any other filmmaker has so far. There might be other horror filmmakers who transitioned to big budget cinema, but there is only ONE Sam Raimi. 9. JAMES CAMERON - AvatarA truck driver turned filmmaker (no, seriously) James Cameron is one of the most financially successful filmmakers of all time. Having made Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator: Judgement Day, True Lies, Titanic and Avatar-it's hard to argue with the man's ability to make films or money. Even before he was a box office titan, Cameron had a massive ego and strong commitment to his vision. He worked his way up through departments on the Roger Corman Alien rip-off; Galaxy of Terror, and was a control freak hothead. He was completely entrenched in the goal of storytelling and the use of visual effects. He's pushed visual effects and production values in almost every one of his works. Terminator and Aliens touted amazing practical effects, The Abyss and Terminator 2 had state of the art early uses of CGI, Titanic was a monument to a mix of real and CGI effects, and Avatar was the big digital soundstage 3D event that became (and retains after a Chinese re-release after Avengers: Endgame) the highest grossing film of all time. While much has been said about his (let's say unique) take on feminism, efficient screenwriting and Terminator's Day expression of the distrust in police: it's Cameron's visual goals that earn him the title of auteur. While Cameron's films don't look similar (Terminator 1 and 2 are stylistically different), it's his ability to envision his stories and carry out the painstaking process of achieving them that stands out. He prefers to shoot practically underwater as opposed to CGI, he'll use new effects to show things people have never seen and he'll be a hard ass on set to do it. Apparently on the set of Avatar, Cameron had an artificial wall brought into the studio so that if someone's phone went off during filming (or a take, I assume) that he'd take your phone and nail it to that wall. Cameron's somewhat earned abrasive attitude has been around before he directed his first film has made him very distinctive as a filmmaker. Look at the opinions he's had on DC's Wonder Woman and Aquaman, or pre-emptive criticisms of Avatar: The Way of Water being 3 hours long and it's clear he's an artist all his own. While Avatar was criticized as a bad story that was "preachy" about its anti-colonial and pro-environmentalist messaging while being mostly a "tech demo"-I think that's dismissive of the work Cameron, the effects team and production crews did in achieving Avatar. Avatar is 100% Cameron's vision, a Captain dedicated to the perfection of his visual monument to cinema. You may dislike it (though I think the film is pretty damn awesome), you can't deny it's one of the most successful pieces of visual art. 8. PETER JACKSON - King KongPeter Jackson has often earned the distinction of "The Sam Raimi of New Zealand", but I feel Jackson is somewhat a different beast. While both love gore, horror and contain a gleeful sense of humor-Jackson has a few distinctions from his mad-ball peers. He's clearly a monster lover (possibly fetishistic even) and often attempts new ways to push filmmaking effects like James Cameron. Having started off with near exploitation splatter horror films like Bad Taste and Braindead, Jackson (like Raimi) leapt to blockbuster adaptations with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. While that trilogy clearly had the New Zealander's fingerprints all over it, I don't know if I could 100% claim it as auteur expression with its effort to be faithful to Tolkien's work. I can however state that Peter Jackson's 2005 remake of King Kong is definetley his big blockbuster auteur piece. Cashing in on the $3 Billions he garnered from Lord of the Rings, Jackson aimed to make the big blown out version of 1933 King Kong-a film he might have had too much love for. He expands upon the monster fights, film politics and even a deleted scene from the original film all to his own joy. In the original 1933 King Kong, there was a deleted stop-motion scene after Kong knocked much of the Venture's crew off a log into a ravine where giant arthropods would come out to eat the crew that survived the fall. Depending on who you ask, this scene was either too harrowing for audiences or cut due to pacing. Jackson not only reconstructed that stop motion scene, but made an extended and skin crawling homage in his remake. That scene still gets under my skin to this day and I know Jackson enjoys knowing that. The Ultimate Edition of King Kong is a 3 hour epic that I've come to love as a film truly in love with the original, expanding everything to be a true modern day epic. While Jackson's King Kong only made over $562 Million compared to the success of the Lord of the Rings, I have a feeling Jackson is just as proud and has more personal attachment to the film. I mean, if you were given the chance to make a $200+ Million remake of one of your favorite films-I'm sure you'd put your heart and soul into it. 7. RIAN JOHNSON - Star Wars: The Last JediWhen Disney purchased Star Wars and planned on reviving the series for sequels and spin-offs, many people assumed they'd just print out pure products with no soul. The Force Awakens and Rogue One certainly had energy and life given to them by passionate filmmakers, but neither stood as truly singular visions. However, Disney decided to give Rian Johnson near complete creative control with Episode 8: The Last Jedi and it was the most artistically unique film since The Empire Strikes Back. For those who don't have to observe the internet and its bizarre citizens (I hope you all have happier lives), this film was one many films subjected to "criticism" (angry nonsensical ranting) by anti-progressive outrage merchant grifters and political commentators. Why? Because the film had a more diverse cast and acted as a somewhat darkly cynical deconstruction of Star Wars for most of its runtime. This angry anti-artistic group claimed that The Last Jedi was a terrible film for pushing "SJW Woke Politics" because a Star Wars film had more women and people of color and have done so on any film that vaguely opposes their right wing, bigoted and paranoid insecure minds. This muddied the water because The Last Jedi was a rather divisive film in fan and critic circles. Some people found it worked and some claimed Rian Johnson's attempts just didn't work. It's just unfortunate that those who didn't like it were somewhat placed in the same camp as the angry howling bigots. For context, Rian Johnson is a filmmaker who started out with an indie neo noir film in 2005 called Brick, directed some of the best episodes of Breaking Bad like Ozymandias and gained mainstream attention with the time-travel thriller Looper back in 2012. So everyone who said that Rian Johnson is an idiot and doesn't know what he's doing are disingenuous in that they either don't know his prior work or just say that to be petty. Rian Johnson is not a cookie-cutter filmmaker and while his artistic voice has somewhat yet to be found, the work he has put out is very much about breaking down classic genres and their tropes. His approach to Star Wars was to approach the series from a thematic and meta-textual point of view and deconstruct it. Breaking down elements like the elitist Jedi order, the fact war profiteering and slavery are prominent in this story regardless of who is winning, that Luke Skywalker is more myth than man and how toxic fans are ruining the series. But, the part many people miss is that despite seemingly being a complete tear down, the character of Rey as an in-universe Star Wars fangirls inspires a re-affirmation of the myth of Star Wars to Luke and the audience and why we love it. Star Wars: The Last Jedi is effectively that series' version of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns comic or James Mangold's Wolverine film Logan of the same year. I understand why many didn't like the film, as being so willingly to openly call out elements in a series people love is going to be problematic. Then again, contentious Star Wars opinions have existed as far back as Return of the Jedi so the curve for grading Star Wars is one entirely its own. I'm mostly amazed that after the retread of A New Hope in the Force Awakens, Disney willingly let this very unique writer make probably the best Star Wars film ever and it made a billion dollars. 6. JAMES GUNN - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 + 2 and The Suicide SquadFrom Troma to big budget scripts to underperforming genre films to some of the best blockbusters of the 21st century: James Gunn is just a great filmmaker. Having an anarchic sense of humor, but a genuine love for his characters makes Gunn the genre equivalent to the Coen Brothers. His two Guardians of the Galaxy films for Marvel proved to be fun and well made sci-fi action films, but also showed a genuine humanity for characters who are immensely flaws and broken. While his major influence on pop culture is having more major films bring in classic 70's/80's rock songs into their audio-scape, his real gift is in writing characters. In Guardians of the Galaxy, Gunn wrote Chris Pratt's Peter Quill as a boy who refused to grow up and needed to accept the death of his mother. In its sequel, Gunn pushed Peter further into dealing with further parental detachment, toxic masculinity and the male ego. Whether Gunn was speaking about his own creative or emotional maturity as he's grown in the 20+ years he's been in films or truly knowing the character he built-his voice speaks very loud. After Gunn was wrongfully fired from Guardians of the Galaxy 3 because right wing pundits created a fake outrage machine based on decades old edgy joke tweets because Gunn didn't like Trump, he was given full reign to do the same but more at DC. After 2016's Suicide Squad attempted by be DC's Guardians of the Galaxy, they gladly opted to hire the creators of that film. And because DC was now willing to let their films be righteously violent, James got to being his chaotic humor, love of gore, edgy humor and lover of his cast into one big masterwork with 2021's The Suicide Squad. Maybe it's my own sensibilities, but I think The Suicide Squad is a superior film to his Guardians work. But what I can say is that all three are big budget films where the studio had the confidence in Gunn to let him make the stories he wanted to tell, with the characters he wanted to tell them with. I genuinely am excited to see where he goes with Guardians of Galaxy Vol 3 and beyond as one of the most emotionally in touch filmmakers and writers working with $200 Million + budgets. 5. CHRISTOPHER NOLAN - TenetOne of the most successful and vaguely distinct filmmakers working in the major leagues is Christopher Nolan. After gaining attention with his 2000 neo noir thriller Memento, he went on to direct the Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception, Interstellar and Dunkirk. But I think his ultimate auteur piece of filmmaking is 2020's Tenet. While many attribute Inception as his great auteur work; being that Inception is literally about the process of filmmakers working to subconsciously plant emotional and thematic ideas in your mind. I think Tenet is actually closer to Nolan's personal ethos as a filmmaker, artist and storyteller. Nolan's filmmaking goal is a sense of immersion with tangible practicality, while his storytelling obsessions are the concepts of time and stories that fold in on themselves (as in finish where they started). It really feels like Nolan took all the concepts of time he explored in Memento, The Prestige, Interstellar and Dunkirk; before mixing them with the practical effects work he did in his Dark Knight trilogy to make the pinnacle film of his career. The divisive response Tenet received is the sign of an artistic work, in that people love it, hate it or are entirely mixed about it. It's very rare for action films of this size and scope to receive such a varied response, with similarly polarizing works being Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi, Gore Verbinski's A Cure for Wellness and Darren Aronosfky's Mother! When your ambitious sci-fi conceit in your 70's spy film throwback is inversion (the ability to simply move in the reverse flow of time) and do that all while REALLY crashing a plane into a building, executing forward time vs reverse time combatants with largely in camera effects and cutely having your protagonist literally only be known as that s impressive. Tenet really feels like Nolan was stating his abilities as a storyteller and filmmaker in what he can achieve, the passions he holds and how well he can execte them. If there's anything that says auteur, it's literally a project with everything you love. 4. DARREN ARONOFSKY - NoahDarren Aronofsky is the most "arthouse" director on this list. Starting with the $60'000 psychological horror Pi back in 1998, Aronofsky garnered mainstream attention with his soul crushing psychological drama Requiem for a Dream. How mainstream was it? Well, Warner Brothers was seriously going to let this guy make Batman: Year one as the most realistic and gritty version of the character. Like Batman's costume would be made from garbage and Catwoman would just be a BDSM dominatrix. That never happened, but he did write and produce the horror films Below, create the underrated masterwork The Fountain and achieve critical and commercial success with The Wrestler and Black Swan. Black Swan was such a major hit (grossing $329 Million against a budget of $13 Million) that Paramount gave him $160 Million to make an adaptation of the biblical story of Noah. While religious epics used to be commonplace with Hollywood classics like Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments, they quickly were over taken by pure sci-fi/fantasy/superhero tales. Many religious films of the 21st Century are little more than cringeworthy propaganda and fearmongering to right wing conservative faith audiences. Aronofsky wanted to both return the genre to its epic status, but also make a visionary and daring work. Noah tells a story where God is only referred to as The Creator, angels who rebelled against The Creator are now multi-limbed rock monsters and the world is a post apocalyptic wasteland destroyed by consuming industrial cities of humans. Between Noah and Mother!, Aronofsky is clearly exploring themes of environmentalism and planetary destruction in the fascinating way only he can. Noah is largely respectful to the tale of Noah; but expands it with its apocalyptic world, monsters, visual cues of evolution and Noah's own experience of being close to God driving him mad. In all his films, Aronofsky treats the understanding of God or divinity as both transcendent, but incomprehensible to the human experience. After all, if one could truly understand God...wouldn't that make them less than God? Noah really is a spectacle of both a personal vision that fits into an artist's body of work, but also a big budget VFX heavy action movie that expands upon a story many already know. I know a lot of religious audiences will find the film sacrilegious in how it tries to explores its characters and story the same way Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader did in The Last Temptation of Christ-but that's why I like it. It's an artistic expression that's earnest, but not afraid to challenge, provoke or incite questions into the audiences who watch it. 3. MICHAEL BAY - Bad Boys 2Shut up, no seriously shut up. About the only thing as annoying as people insisting the Transformers films are the worst thing in cinema (alongside every other mainstream supposedly "worse thin in cinema") is the idea that Michael Bay is one of the worst filmmakers with no artistic vision. Like it or not, Bay is one of the most distinctive auteur filmmakers of American Cinema. It just so happens he operates not in traditional biopics, low budget arthouse horror films or anything else typically associated with artistic cinema. He operates in explosions, gunfights, car chases, teal and orange color pallets, broad comedy and his own pop nihilistic viewpoint. His Transformers films were a career move to show his prowess in billion dollar franchises to make his own passionate project, while using the films themselves as tech demos for filmmaking techniques, visual ideas and using comedic actors it unique ways. After the first 3 Transformers films he finally got to make a passion project in Pain and Gain, and its clear films like 13 Hours, 6 Underground and Ambulance also stemmed from a person vision. But I think his true artistic masterwork comes from 2003's Bad Boys 2. Made after his disastrous attempt to be a "serious" filmmaker with Pearl Harbor, Bay put all his style, passion, anger and filmmaking expertise into a $130 million dollar blockbuster that's violent, crude, nihilistically destructive, 2.5 hours long and awesome. Bad Boys 2 follows the characters Bay established in his 1995 directorial debut, but defines them as embodiments of masculinity and vessels to observe or create destruction. The film is full to the broom with visuals many other filmmakers would only do once in a film, but Bay puts them all here. Will Smith throwing off a KKK cloak with both arms outstretched, each holding a pistol to match the burning crucifix behind him? Check. A car chase turned shootout turned back into a car chase where the bad guys throw cars at the heroes and a boat gets destroyed? Check. Two grown black men intimidating a young black man who is take a girl on a date? Check. Multiple scenes with zero respect for corpses? Check. One scene of the heroes having what appears to be a homosexual discussion and another where one is high on X in front of their boss? Double check. Like him or not, you cannot deny that Bay is achieving the vision he has in exactly the way he wants to. While the Transformers films limited him somewhat creatively; works like Bad Boys 2, Pain and Gain, 13 Hours, 6 Underground and Ambulance all reflect the divisive action auteur whose still is often imitated but never duplicated. 2. CHLOE ZHAO - EternalsA criticism often levied at Marvel is that their films often look and feel so similar that the interesting directors they often hire get their voices lost in the pre-visualization heavy, 2nd Unit team directing action, Kevin Feige produced series. But Marvel has let very distinct filmmakers add their style and flair to films more than it's mentioned. They like Kenneth Branagh bring his directorial style to the first Thor, let Shane Black make the kind of soft deconstructionist action comedy he's known for in Iron Man 3, given James Gunn the ability to tell his stories in his vision, have Taika Waititi bring his human and 80's retro aesthetic for Thor 3 and 4, and most recently let Sam Raimi make the closest thing to an MCU horror film. But the most prominent example is Chloe Zhao's Eternals film. After having proved herself on the indie scene and about to start production on Nomadland, Zhao was offered to direct Marvel's long-in development Black Widow film. She turned them down, but pitched them her version of Eternals that Marvel was looking to bring to the big screen. After finishing Nomadland, Zhao filmed Eternals in the form of a true blockbuster in an arthouse style and Nomadland then went on to win Best Actress, Best Picture and Best Director at the 93rd Academy Awards. Eternals opened to mixed reception, more divided than the usually positive reviews MCU films received-but fans largely adored it. While Eternals is a big, action heavy, VFX fueled superhero movie-its style and narrative are entirely that of Zhao's. Influenced by the likes of Terrence Mallick, Ridley Scott's Prometheus and even Nick Cassavetes' The Notebook, Eternals is the strangest beast in the Marvel series. It's not a safe, cookie-cutter blockbuster: it explores concepts like ancient aliens astronauts (without devolving into paranoia), uses music and sound to add an atmospherically richer texture to the already free form directorial style. It made an interesting comparison with Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Dune that came out around the same time. Both films are big space opera films with ambitious ideas and intentions, but made by wholly different visionaries. Zhao is more interested in making the film have a look and feel that reflects the journey of her near immortal characters to the point scenes seem to transition hundreds of years in a matter of seconds to these characters. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is the biggest film series and blockbuster entity largely for just making good films and hiring the right cast, crew, writers and directors under Kevin Feige's producing hands. But I think now is the time more than ever that Marvel needs to give filmmakers like Chloe Zhao the canvas they can provide to make artistic works without budgetary limitations and the biggest audience possible. 1. ZACK SNYDER - 300, Watchmen, Sucker Punch and DCEULet's get this out of the way up front, Zack Snyder is an amazing filmmaker who has received far too much in the way of disingenuous negative from people who don't attempt to understand his creative ethos. And in the past 5 years he's unfortunately developed a "fanbase" of Snyder Cultists who also don't actually understand his creative desires and just want surface level gritty, serious and violent superhero films.
Starting out in the 90's at Propaganda Films, Snyder worked in directing music videos and commercials alongside other famous directors like David Fincher, Michael Bay, Gore Verbinski, Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry. After his directorial debut, 2004's remake of Dawn of the Dead-he used his desire to push digital filmmaking by adapting Frank Miller's 300 graphic novel. Less interested in the post-9/11 politics inherent to the West V.S Middle East angle of the comic; Snyder was purely interested in the visuals, representation of masculine strength, gory violence and somewhat critical angle of the Spartans. While in no way a historically accurate or authentic film, 300 is one of the best uses of digital cameras, blue screen backlots and CGI to tell a very simple story. After George Lucas attempted to push the digital backlot with the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Snyder was one of the few successful adopters until that filmmaking approach became mainstream about half a decade later. While 300 isn't a rich narrative or interested in the contemporary politics, it's still 100% Snyder's vision and made a foundation for his distinctive style. In Watchmen, Snyder finally realized the Alan Moore graphic novel into live action cinema after so many had failed. In his youth, Snyder was largely uninterested in classic comics and more interested in works like the Heavy Metal graphic novel and absolutely loved Watchmen. it's clear Snyder has always had an interest in dark, hyper violent and sexualised material as opposed to more traditional work. While Watchmen largely retains Moore's story and dialogue to feel like a mostly faithful adaptation, Snyder changed some elements to be more suited to his creative ethos. But this wasn't entirely in a political commentary sense, Snyder basically told a story about violent superheroes being rejected by humanity as a reflection for divisive artists who tell his kind of work being largely rejected too. Watchmen carries so much of Snyder's visual style, filmmaking techniques and artist's rights messaging that it's a shame it's often considered a lukewarm attempt in the genre. It cannot be denied that Snyder has had a vetted interest in "pro-art" stories, having wanted to adapt Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead for years. But he's also grown up and realized the negative political undercurrents in the work he's had an interest in-disposing of The Fountainhead project due to its creator's right wing political philosophy. And it's strange that many bigots and sexists are drawn to Snyder's work, considering that work reflects that of a many who clearly has nuanced and positive views on feminism. Even as far back as Dawn of the Dead, Snyder has done his best to not let the women in his stories be purely objectified entities of lust. Sucker Punch is easily his biggest stamp on his views of feminism, in what I think is his most personal artwork. Sucker Punch is a film with multiple levels of reality, stuffed with very visual idea Snyder has wanted to create and is a dark, but confrontational look on multiple school of feminism, while still being a visually engaging action film. The way it attempts to tackle how audiences view cinema seems largely an intentional adoption of Nolan's similar work in Inception and works wonders to literally "Sucker Punch" the audience. It feels aspirational and informative to women, while being a slap in the face of men who just want to perversely gawk at the seemingly fetishized live action anime heroines. It's not a safe film, having many dark scenes for a film general audiences can still see and being so thoroughly layered in reality, themes, metaphor and meta-textual commentary. You can certainly argue that it doesn't work, but you can easily recognize the intent and passion Snyder put into this film, and I still hold this as a genuinely great piece of cinema that I'm surprised Snyder managed to get a big budget for. And then we move onto Snyder's ambitious attempts to make the DC Extended Universe. While Man of Steel was narratively and thematically influence mostly by Christopher Nolan who produced the film, Snyder's auteur sensibilities came entirely through the visuals, action and Superman questioning the use of his own powers. Man of Steel for me, was the first time I ever found an interest in Superman and considering how Snyder himself was uninterested in that traditional view of the hero-allowed him to make one of the most distinctive portrayals of the character. After somewhat planning out a universe and series of films, Snyder was able to make Batman V Superman; Dawn of Justice. This film was much more in line with Snyder's own narrative and visual aesthetics; giving us a Dark Knight Returns rendition of Batman, continuing Superman's inability to reconcile his identity, a definitive version of Wonder Woman on the big screen and visuals that still stay within the minds of people. Snyder had an impressively long leash from Warner Brothers in creating his vision, but still needed to somewhat obey studio demands. But everything from the epic score, to visual style and action all stem from his mind and his vision. It's just a shame the film underperformed and received a largely negative reception from critics and audiences. After Snyder's disappointing (to Warner Brothers) attempt to establish a crossover and universe, his then in-production Justice League Part 1 was limited to a single feature and forced to reshoot for a lighter tone. This somewhat halted when Snyder lost his daughter and he stepped down from the project. Justice League would be rewrote, reshot and recut under Joss Whedon and the results were a disaster. Justice League 2017 is a bad film, Whedon's on set behavior was disgusting and it's amazing the DC films managed to recover. In the years following, Snyder spoke about his original intent for the film and his fans (along with bots) seemed to mount pressure against Warner Brothers for "The Snyder Cut". After years of feeling like they'd betrayed a director who'd been with the studio since 2006, and collaborators like Ben Affleck and Gal Gadot pushing for Snyder's vision-Warner Brothers gave Snyder and company the funds to reshoot and reconstruct his vision as an HBO Max special. Released in 2021 as a 4 hour epic, Zack Snyder's Justice League was a gift to those who'd wanted his vision achieved. The film looked amazing after Whedon's Cut was an ugly mess, characters like Cyborg and Steppenwolf were fixed and Snyder's clear grasp of the vision he was making was on full display. While a four hour film might seem indulgent, Hollywood classics like Lawrence of Arabia and Ben-Hur used to run for that time, many audiences binge watch several hours of tv shows in one sitting and streaming platform show people will be willing to watch someone for almost an an entire day or more. Man of Steel, Batman V Superman and Justice League might not be universally praise and have given idiot fake fanboys a sense of righteous vitriol, but what matters is Snyder's artistic goals being made flesh. While many either demand or theorize Snyder's return, it's clear with how he's found a home in Netflix with Army of the Dead, Rebel Moon and the future Planet of the Dead that Snyder has felt enough betrayal from Warner Brothers and wants to make whatever he wants. It's very similar to how Nolan left to company in late 2020 and took his $100 Million Oppenheimer biopic to Universal. Director's aren't machines, they're humans with creative endeavors and if you don't respect them-they'll leave. While many audiences want simply well made entertainment, just as many are hungry for visionaries filmmakers to make personal and passionate films that many haven't seen before. Every director's vision is worth fighting. I'd rather live in a world where we discuss the artistic merits of a director's intent and vision, than one where seemingly automated studio films are thrown out like products on a conveyer belt.
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