With so much riding on the upcoming DC crossover film, it’s disheartening to see the production face so many setbacks. Although the film wrapped principle photography a while back, it has allegedly been overhauled in each of the two reshoots it has had since, with a third, definitive reshoot still to come. Now, with the final editing process still underway, Zack Snyder — the film’s director — is leaving the film.
The Snyders have suffered an unutterably tragic event. One of their eight children, Autumn Snyder, committed suicide on March 20th at the age of 20. Although the family has kept the news to themselves in the months since — and the director has tried throwing himself into his work in order to deal with the monumental loss — it has recently become too much for the grieving father to bear.
Snyder announced this week that he will be leaving the post-production of Justice League in order to work through his daughter’s untimely death, leaving the task of the final edits and reshoot to superhero mainstay Joss Whedon, who had previously directed the first two Avengers and will direct the upcoming Batgirl movie. Whedon is actually the person who wrote the script for the final round of reshoots and is familiar with Snyder’s vision for the film, ensuring that the director’s intentions are faithfully carried out in this trying time.
Autumn was one of four children that Zack Snyder had with his now ex-wife, Denise Snyder. He had two more children with Kirsten Elin, a former collaborator, and adopted two others with his wife Deborah, who he married in 2004. Autumn was attending Sarah Lawrence College in New York and writing a science fiction novel that she hoped to eventually publish.
Snyder took a two week break from filming, wanting to throw himself back into his work as soon as possible. On his recent departure from Justice League, Snyder commented that:
“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. 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… I want the movie to be amazing and I’m a fan, but that all pales pretty quickly in comparison. I know the fans are going to be worried about the movie, but there are seven other kids that need me. In the end, it’s just a movie. It’s a great movie. But it’s just a movie.”
It’s hard to know how an event like this will affect a person, and even harder to find a way of coming to terms with it. That Zack Snyder was able to privately work through his grief for this long is nothing short of remarkable. That he could come to terms to needing more time to heal with his family is even more astonishing.
He can rest assured, however, that he can take all the time he needs to deal with this tremendous loss. His film is in excellent hands and will keep until he is able to return to it. His family needs him now more than ever.
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