Man of Steel director Zack Snyder is clearly a huge fan of Frank Miller's work, and The Dark Knight Returns' influence on Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was clear to see. The filmmaker lifted specific panels straight from the pages of the comic book and brought them to the big screen, while even Batman's armour was heavilly influenced by what Miller once put on the page.
Surprisingly, we've never really heard much from Miller himself about these references, and he doesn't seem to have had any sort of active role in Snyder's DCEU movie (as a concept artist, for example). During a recent interview on The Beard and The Bald Movie Podcast (via Screen Rant), the prolific writer and artist shared his thoughts on how his work has inspired what fans have come to call the "SnyderVerse."
"A few years have gone by since all this started, okay? And at first, my reaction was to be very territorial and all that," Miller admitted. "Now I’ve kind of sat back and with a much deeper breath and longer view on the whole thing and all I can say is: this is great. I came in and I came up with my idea for The Dark Knight Returns and that basically was the big splash I made, which started my whole career going. And since then I’ve seen the two fields collaborate back and forth."
"I benefited greatly from Dark Knight Returns and so have they and continue to," he added. "And it can only be looked at as a healthy relationship."
Snyder has talked a lot about wanting to directly adapt The Dark Knight Returns, but it's hard to imagine Warner Bros. being too interested in getting back in the business of making the filmmaker's vision for the DC Universe. After all, they appear to be doing everything possible to move on from the SnyderVerse, hence why there's been no word on the Justice League sequels an awful lot of fans are desperate to see.
Regardless, it's great to see Miller being a good sport about the whole thing rather than heading down the Alan Moore route of despising literally any adaptation of his work (often without seeing it).
Check out what Jesse Eisenberg recently told us about a possible Lex Luthor return below: