April Fools! Zack Snyder Directing ‘Squadron Supreme’ for Marvel Studios

Squadron Supreme
After a tumultuous development cycle on 2017’s Justice League, Zack Snyder is set to return to the director’s chair… At Marvel, with a standalone project that’s not directly tied to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but has the potential to be down the line. The shocking new development was exclusively revealed to us via a private conversation, where he told us that Marvel would use their Multiverse to explore their deconstructive equivalent of DC’s Justice League, the Squadron Supreme.

 

Snyder recently held a fan-based screening for director’s cuts of three of his movies: Dawn of the DeadWatchmen, and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, and answered questions after each of the three movies had been shown. An anonymous source that attended the event decided to share a scoop with us in a private conversation held before the event: he apparently shared some info indicating that he wil be tackling the Marvel property Squadron Supreme sometime after he finishes Army of the Dead for Netflix. Snyder’s move to Marvel follows Gunn’s move to develop the DC Films IP Suicide Squad.

 

Squadron Supreme will reportedly be based upon the seminal 1985 run by Mark Gruenwald. Set in a world devastated by an alien invasion, the titular organization of superheroes has decided that the best way to fix things is to become the leaders of the United States for an entire year, and not only bring things back to normal, but to solve every significant problem in the world. This sounds great on paper, but in practice, the heroes end up becoming well-intentioned fascists as disarm the entire world and create brainwashing devices to forcibly stop criminals from continuing their lives of crime… Among other uses. As threats from within and without tear the team apart, the team’s former leader begins a contingency plan to neutralize his team in the event that they go too far.

 

Zack Snyder

The Squadron Supreme comic itself was released around the same time as Watchmen, which Snyder directed a faithful film adaptation of in 2009. Snyder was interested in the deconstructive elements of the series and is also interested in bringing elements from the Supreme Power line into this retelling. Marvel want to explore alternate realities after the events of Avengers: Endgame (which releases in April), with the hopes of setting up even more ambitious crossovers down the road. There’s evidence out there that the Squadron themselves may appear in the mainstream Marvel Cinematic Universe after being set up in their own alternate – but still connected – setting, as Marvel would be fools to do a one-off when there’s a potential franchise in the making.

 

Squadron Supreme is in early development at Marvel Studios. Except it actually isn’t, as far as we know. April Fools!