Zack Snyder is officially stepping down as the director of Justice League to rebuild his family after the death of his daughter in March. Joss Whedon has replaced him to finish the Warner Bros. superhero film.
The director told The Hollywood Reporter that he and his wife Deborah Snyder, who is a producer on Justice League, quietly took a break from the project following Autumn Snyder death, who committed suicide at age 20. Circumstances surround the situation have been kept private since her death, with only a select group of family and friends aware of what happened.
“In my mind, I thought it was a cathartic thing to go back to work, to just bury myself and see if that was way through it,” says an emotional Snyder in an interview Monday in his office on the Warner Bros. with his wife by his side. “The demands of this job are pretty intense. It is all consuming. And in the last two months I’ve come to the realization …I’ve decided to take a step back from the movie to be with my family, be with my kids, who really need me. They are all having a hard time. I’m having a hard time.”
The Snyders have the full support of the studio, even going as far as to push the release date of the movie back, but the couple decided against it. Whedon has actually worked on the film for a bit already, as Snyder asked for his help to write additional scenes.
While the film is in post-production, this will make the second big superhero team-up movie for the director, after directing The Avengers film. This will make him the first person to direct a both a modern day Marvel and DC film, with each being the culmination of several other films before hand.
It’s unknown how this will affect the Snyder families future in the film industry, but we wish him and his family the best in this tragic time in their lives.
Justice League is scheduled to be released on November 17, 2017, in 2D, 3D and IMAX 3D.For more information, be sure to check back to the site for more updates, as well as all of your Nerdy News!
