Justice League Director Zack Snyder to Receive Honor From Hollywood Critics Association

This Friday the Hollywood Critics Association will debut a brand new award for their annual ceremony, the Valiant Award, and the HCA will award it to none other than Justice League director Zack Snyder.In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter HCA chair Scott Menzel said, "As a fan of Snyder's ever since Dawn of the Dead, I couldn't be happier that we will be acknowledging his visionary filmmaking and resilience to overcome any obstacles." Snyder and his wife/producing partner Deborah Snyder will be honored for how they "responded to the death of their daughter, Autumn Snyder," who passed away in March of 2017 while they were working on the DC feature.

HCA chair Ashley Menzel added, "As someone whose own life was impacted due to suicide, I was extremely moved by how Zack and his wife and business partner Deborah turned their incommensurable pain into altruistic action, spearheading an effort that has helped countless individuals and families." As fans will recall, Autumn's death was the primary reason the Snyders departed from working on Justice League and also why fans, who have championed for the release of Zack Snyder's Justice League, have frequently raised money for the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention in the years they've waited for the film to be released.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Snyder opened up about Autumn's death for the first time in the press, telling the outlet: "At the end of the movie, it says 'For Autumn.' Without her, this absolutely would not have happened...It's such a lightning strike in the center of this whole saga, and in a lot of ways it has informed everything we've done since."

Zack Snyder's Justice League is scheduled to debut on HBO Max on Thursday, March 18th and the hype train has left the station on the film. Snyder took to social media yesterday to reveal the official chapters for the movie which include:

• Part 1: Don't Count On It, Batman
• Part 2: The Age of Heroes
• Part 3: Beloved Mother, Beloved Son
• Part 4: Change Machine
• Part 5: All The King's Horses
• Part 6: Something Darker

All four hours of Zack Snyder's Justice League will be available to stream on HBO Max on March 18. The film was recently confirmed to be Rated-R for "violence and some language," something Snyder previously predicted thanks to the amount of fight scenes and, as he put it, a sequence where Batman drops an F-bomb.

(Cover photo by Tolga Akmen/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)