It appears as though filmmakerZack Snyderhas chosen his next film, and he’s switching to a decidedly smaller scale. The foundational DCEU architect revealeda few years agothat he really wanted to adaptAyn Rand’s novelThe Fountainheadinto a feature film, and while answering a fan on Vero the other day (viaDeadline), Snyder confirmed this will be his next movie.
It has looked for a bit there that Snyder would next be moving onto his Afghanistan war filmThe Last Photograph, which is set up at Warner Bros., but it sounds likeFountainheadwill be happening first. The filmmaker most recently directedJustice League, but departed that project early last year before post-production had been completed.Joss Whedonstepped in and helped finish the film, earning a co-writer credit in the process, and the resulting superhero team-up was a disappointment both critically and commercially.
Snyder was first hired to directMan of Steelback in 2010, so he’s been enmeshed in the DC superhero universe for nearly a decade now. It’ll certainly be a refreshing change of pace to see him make something on a smaller scale, although I’ll admit the prospect of Snyder adapting the controversialFountainheaddoesn’t entice me all that much.
Rand’s book, published in 1943, follows an individualistic young architect named Howard Roark who makes the choice to struggle rather than compromise his artistic vision, as he favors modern architecture over the establishment-supported traditional style. As with all of Rand’s work, it’s a philosophical work of fiction that deals with topics like individualism versus collectivism, and has been used as a political token in the ensuing years. Rand herself defended the book’s position of essentially being anti-altruism.
So yeah, this should be fun. It’ll be interesting to see which studio this lands at, and how soonThe Fountainheadmight occur. But one imagines Snyder might weave some very personal feelings into the story at hand.
