With Zack Snyder preparing to unleash Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice on the world on March 25, he’s spoken to The Hollywood Reporter about the future R-rated edition of the film, as well as what his non-DC Extended Universe future holds. Those future projects include The Last Photograph, a film about a war photographer in Afghanistan, and an adaptation of Ayn Rand’s 1943 novel “The Fountainhead.”
“I have been working on ‘The Fountainhead,’” Snyder confirmed. “I’ve always felt like ‘The Fountainhead’ was such a thesis on the creative process and what it is to create something. Warner Bros. owns [Ayn Rand’s] script and I’ve just been working on that a little bit.”
The script he’s referring to is the one Rand wrote for King Vidor’s 1949 adaptation starring Gary Cooper, which bombed at the box office and which the author later disavowed. The book, about an architect named Howard Rourke who strives to go against the grain in service of a more modern style of building, is a cornerstone of Rand’s controversial Objectivist philosophy, based around “rational self-interest” and no doubt front-and-center on Donald Trump’s bookshelf right next to his copy of My New Order. That said, Snyder adapting the book doesn’t necessarily pin him as an Objectivist, as he previously adapted Frank Miller’s fascistic 300 and Alan Moore’s humanistic Watchmen, the two creators on polar opposite sides of the political spectrum. It could simply be Snyder responding to the grandiosity and design challenge of bringing yet another “unfilmable” novel to the screen.
Oscar-winning The Deer Hunter filmmaker Michael Cimino penned a screenplay of The Fountainhead in the mid-seventies with Clint Eastwood in mind for the Rourke part, but the failure of Heaven’s Gate took the wind out of his sails. In the early 2000s, Francis Ford Coppola attempted to mount his dream project Megalopolis, a story with an architect protagonist heavily inspired by Rourke, but the massive budget proved unattainable.
Meanwhile, Snyder also confirmed the running time and content of the R-rated home video version of Batman v Superman, which was most definitely not dictated by the surprise success of Deadpool but rather based on footage that had been shot last year.
“The why of that is [the DVD version] is a half-hour longer, and some of that additional material is some of the stuff we took out for the rating,” Snyder said. “I was like, ‘Cool, I can put it back in for the director’s cut.’ There was nothing by design. This was the material I just put back in, and then when [the MPAA] looked at it again, they were like, ‘Oh, now the movie’s rated R.’ And, by the way, it’s not a hard R. There’s no nudity. There’s a little bit of violence. It just tips the scale.”
Directed by Zack Snyder and written by Chris Terrio from a screenplay by David S. Goyer, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice stars Henry Cavill in the role of Clark Kent/Superman and Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman. The film also stars Gal Gadot as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, with Amy Adams, Laurence Fishburne and Diane Lane returning from Man of Steel, joined by Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, Jeremy Irons as Alfred, and Holly Hunter in a role newly created for the film. Jason Momoa will also be making an appearance as Aquaman.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is set to open worldwide on March 25, 2016.
