Batman Should Kill People, Zack Snyder Says

Batman beats up a lot of bad guys, but he doesn't kill. If it were up to Batman v Superman and Justice League director Zack Snyder, though, that might change.

Speaking on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Snyder said Batman could become "irrelevant" if he doesn't push more boundaries. Snyder said he lives and breathes superheroes and wants to advance Batman's character arc further by seeing how he would handle himself if he had to take a life.

"Batman can't kill is canon. And I'm like, 'OK, well the first thing I wanna do when you say that [laughs] is I wanna see what happens'. And they go, 'Well don't put him in a situation where he has to kill someone,'" Snyder said.

He said superhero fans may see Batman as a "god," and he believes fans are actually doing the character a disservice if they don't want to see him tested in a new way.

"You're protecting your god in a weird way, right? You're making your god irrelevant if he can't be in that situation," he said. "He has to now deal with that. If he does do that what does that mean? What does it tell you? Does he stand up to it? Can he survive that? As your god, can Batman survive that?"

Snyder is a big fan of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, and cited that as an example of testing Batman to his limits, or potentially beyond them. In a scene, a mutant has kidnapped a child and tells Batman he plans to kill the child. Batman has an M60 and shoots the mutant in the head, or at least that's the read that Snyder has. Not everyone is convinced that Batman followed through, and the comic strip is intentionally ambiguous about what happens.

Whatever the case, Snyder said he's fascinated by the possibility of Batman being in a "no-win scenario" like that.

"That's where Miller takes Batman and tears him in half. And you've got to now come out the other side of that. Batman is still the hero. He still does the right thing. He maintains his code. He doesn't change. But our perception of him changes," Snyder said.

Snyder said he believes Batman fans feel similarly to him in that a character like Batman needs to be tested with higher stakes. "It's been my experience that the characters have not let us down," he said. "These myths have not let us down."

Also during the podcast, Snyder said he has a theory on why he believes his movies are so divisive. Part of the reason why people get so worked up about the movies Snyder makes is because of the subjects--mainly superheroes. He said the characters and stories have transcended the pages and the screen and have become a way of life and a religion for some.

"That's a lifestyle choice for a lot of people. It's not a movie," he said. "If I made a romantic comedy, you'd be like, 'OK, that was fun.' I love that [fans] feel this passionately. In no way would I criticize that, because I live the same life. For me, it's morning, noon, and night. For those guys, it's not just a movie. So you have to, on some level, you have to acknowledge that this is their religion. And they feel strongly about it. The truth is--it's my religion, too."