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As is the classic cliche with most directors, Christopher Nolan isn’t only a filmmaker but he’s a movie fan.
And like most movie fans, Nolan watches films across all sorts of genres, including the science fiction and superhero genre, which he believes is widely influenced by the work of Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice director Zack Snyder.
“There’s no superhero science-fiction film coming out these days where I don’t see some influence of Zack,” Nolan told The Atlantic for a profile about the divisive Man Of Steel director.
“When you watch a Zack Snyder film, you see and feel his love for the potential of cinema. The potential of it to be fantastical, to be heightened in its reality, but to move you and to excite you.”
Nolan’s belief in Snyder certainly isn’t all that surprising considering that he was the producer of the film, pitched the idea from writer David S. Goyer to Warner Bros., and ultimately hired Snyder as the film’s director.
Placed under a bit of scrutiny, however, Nolan’s comments don’t hold up as Snyder’s tonality ultimately wasn’t able to sustain the DCEU for a decade, while his style is the virtual antithesis of what Marvel Studios and Sony put out these days when it comes to their comic book projects.
Even on a technical level, his penchant for slow-motion and gore is far from the norm when it comes to populous blockbuster filmmaking these days.
Now, Nolan does have a point in the sense that Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, the most recent superhero movie to hit theaters, starred Jason Momoa, who was cast as Aquaman by Snyder. The same can be said about Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, who featured in both Shazam: Fury of the Gods and The Flash.
Longevity, however, isn’t an indicator of influence, but rather, circumstance. And the circumstances are that Snyder hasn’t made a legitimately great movie since Man of Steel — and even then, the film isn’t universally beloved by any stretch of the imagination, making its greatness a matter of personal opinion — which, perhaps more than himself, had Nolan’s influence all over it.
Snyder’s latest film Rebel Moon is now streaming on Netflix after premiering on December 21. It currently has a 24% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the second-worst reviewed film of his career behind only Sucker Punch.