Zack Snyder still hopes to bring Batman graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns to screen

Promoting his upcoming film The Last Photograph, director Zack Snyder used an interview with Variety to revisit a long-held ambition: adapting Frank Miller's 1986 graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns, which follows an ageing Batman coming out of retirement in a dystopian Gotham.

Snyder argued that this novel, alongside Watchmen, represents the complete cycle of the superhero comic book medium — with Watchmen marking the beginning of the superhero movie era, and The Dark Knight Returns now fitting a point where the genre has matured considerably.

An uncertain path forward

Snyder's ties to the DC universe ended when the studio came under the leadership of James Gunn and Peter Safran, who set out to build something entirely different from his earlier Batman and Superman films starring Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill.

Complicating any such project is the fact that DC Studios already has two Batman projects in motion: Robert Pattinson's version, heading into a second film under director Matt Reeves titled The Batman Part II, and a separate Batman appearing in The Brave and the Bold, directed by Andy Muschietti.

Still, Snyder's supporters note that his four-hour cut of Justice League once seemed similarly unlikely before it was eventually released. A potential shake-up at DC Studios tied to Paramount Skydance's planned takeover of Warner Bros Discovery could yet reopen the door for Snyder.