Zack Snyder called Gunn's Superman 'amazing'. He still hasn't seen it

We need to talk about the ongoing orbit around Zack Snyder and James Gunn’s Superman. It’s honestly getting a bit surreal at this stage, more than a year on from Superman blowing up at the box office and still, apparently, not landing on Snyder’s watchlist. What’s going on? Let’s break it down.

Superman pulled in $618 million at the global box office after opening last year.

Snyder: Still Hasn’t Watched Superman

Snyder recently sat down with The Hollywood Reporter, supposedly to chat about his new movie, but of course the subject of Gunn’s Superman came up. Snyder admits he hasn’t watched it — he just 'hasn’t gotten around to it yet,' as he put it. He insists he supports Gunn and genuinely wants DC Studios to do well, but it’s a striking admission, considering Superman’s been out for ages, is readily available everywhere, and is, you know, the reboot of the very universe Snyder originally shaped.

The whole thing gets knottier because earlier this year, Snyder went on the Happy Sad Confused podcast and specifically called Gunn’s Superman 'amazing' and said he 'can’t wait to watch the next movie.' Try to square that with having not seen the first film. Either time is moving differently in Snyderland, or he’s leaning on social niceties a bit too hard.

The Gunn–Snyder Friendship (Yes, Really)

You’d be forgiven for thinking there’s some running feud here, especially as a chunk of fans like to pit the two directors against each other as if they’re football managers. But the reality is less about warfare and more about old friends crossing paths in a very small Hollywood lane. It was James Gunn who wrote Zack Snyder’s very first feature, Dawn of the Dead, back in 2004. When Gunn took over DC, he even phoned Snyder to get his take on whether Superman should wear the classic red trunks — so there’s a bit of respect both ways. The pair even showed up together as a joke cameo in an episode of Rick and Morty, gently roasting the so-called rivalry.

Snyder’s DC Legacy — And the State of Play

For anyone who needs a refresher, Snyder was the main architect of the original DCEU, launching it in 2013 with Man of Steel and following up with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, then the (messy) road to Justice League, whose infamous 'Snyder Cut' took nearly a decade to materialise. The DCEU never found proper footing, with critics and plenty of audience members pushing back on Snyder’s take, especially around Superman and Batman. By 2022, Warner Bros. axed the whole DCEU notion and put Gunn in charge of a fresh start, now simply called the DCU.

Some in the audience still campaign for Snyder to return to DC, but the odds look slim. His latest film, The Last Photograph, got absolutely savaged by critics when it premiered at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival. While Gunn’s reign has had shaky moments (Supergirl flopped), the ship’s steadied a bit, largely thanks to strong reviews for Lanterns. The next DC film, Clayface, is dropping in under a month, and after that, Superman’s sequel — Man of Tomorrow — is teed up.