Zack Snyder

Zack Snyder is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter born in Green Bay, Wisconsin, in 1966. After studying at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, he directed commercials and music videos. His feature debut was *Dawn of the Dead* (2004), a remake of George A. Romero’s 1978 zombie film. James Gunn wrote the screenplay. Snyder followed it with *300* (2006), an adaptation of Frank Miller and Lynn Varley’s graphic novel about the Battle of Thermopylae. Its digitally constructed landscapes, slow-motion combat, and stark color palette became closely associated with his directing style.

In 2009, Snyder directed *Watchmen*, adapting the comic by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The film depicts an alternate 1985 in which former costumed vigilantes confront a conspiracy amid nuclear tensions. Its opening credits compress decades of that alternate history into a montage set to Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” Snyder then directed the animated fantasy *Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole* (2010) and co-wrote and directed *Sucker Punch* (2011), a fantasy action film centered on a young woman confined to a psychiatric institution.

*Man of Steel* (2013) brought Snyder into DC’s Superman films, with Henry Cavill playing Clark Kent. He next directed *Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice* (2016), which introduced Ben Affleck’s Batman and Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman to that series. Snyder began directing *Justice League*, but left the production after the death of his daughter Autumn; Joss Whedon completed the film released in 2017. Following years of public campaigning by fans, a substantially different, four-hour version titled *Zack Snyder’s Justice League* was released on HBO Max in 2021. The two versions have different scenes, character arcs, and endings.

Snyder returned to zombies with *Army of the Dead* (2021), about a team entering a quarantined Las Vegas to retrieve money from a casino vault. He directed, co-wrote, and served as cinematographer on the Netflix film. His Netflix science-fiction project *Rebel Moon* followed in two parts: *A Child of Fire* in 2023 and *The Scargiver* in 2024. Sofia Boutella plays Kora, who recruits fighters to defend a farming settlement from the forces of the Motherworld. Snyder and his wife, producer Deborah Snyder, have worked together on many of his films through their production company, now called The Stone Quarry. Their collaborations span his comic-book adaptations, *Army of the Dead*, and *Rebel Moon*, giving them a sustained role in both the creative and production sides of his career.