Guardians Of The Galaxy Villain Josh Brolin Takes A None-Too-Subtle Jab At Zack Snyder

Guardians of the Galaxy star Josh Brolin has said in the past that he was contacted for the role of Batman which eventually went to Ben Affleck, but hasn't really commented beyond that.

The closest he came was acknowleding in a March interview with Total Film magazine that he and director Zack Snyder didn't see eye to eye on how Batman should be approached.

"Me and Zack had a conversation about it," Brolin explained at the time, "and there were several reasons why we said it wasn't the best idea on both sides. I had mine and Zack had his."

He seemed to suggest that Snyder's take on the character was a bit too "cool" for him, valuing big moments and clever lines. That wouldn't be too far off-target, given the fact that Snyder has repeatedly cited Frank Miller's Batman, who enjoyed a little of that style depiction, as his muse.

In a new interview with IGN, though, Brolin takes what's pretty transparently a pot shot at Snyder's past as a music video director, suggesting that Marvel's movies are better because their filmmakers are more focused on substance than style.

"First and foremost, I have a really good friend who I've known for years who's the co-president of Marvel, Louis D'Esposito. I knew Louis as a first AD, and he's the one who initially called me, and then [producer] Jeremy Latcham. Then I talked to Kevin Feige, ultimately," Brolin explained. "But there's something about them that's so insular and so geeky and so real. I loved it -- because I've turned down a lot of those types of movies. Not Marvel, but I've turned down a lot of those types of movies. When they started telling me the story about them getting together in Palm Springs, nine of them flipping burgers and talking about what Thanos was going to do and going, 'What do you think?' like, 'Captain America's going to show up here!' Then, 'Oh my God, what if the Hulk came in at that point?' and all that -- I love that s--t. I love it, because those guys are absolutely saturated with that world, and they love story. Another thing that I really loved is, they said that they didn't use directors that did music videos and all that in the past. They would always look for people who had done stories. If you look at James Gunn's oeuvre, he's done even web series, but they're all stories."

Zack Snyder, of course, got his start doing music videos for Soul Asylum, Morrissey and others. He hasn't done them regularly since he got his feature film break in Dawn of the Dead (written by Gunn, ironically enough), but he returned to the form in 2009 to direct My Chemical Romance's "Desolation Row" music video for Watchmen.

While top Marvel management has typically remained respectful of the competition, both at Warner/DC and otherwise, actors seem to have a bit looser rein to take their shots. During the Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice/Captain America 3 release date kerfuffle that finally wrapped up yesterday, Anthony Mackie repeatedly took pot shots at the other film, although his seemed mostly to be in the spirit of good-natured carnival barking, where Brolin's comments here seem to indicate a real frustration with Warners' approach.

Adds commenter SuperZilla below:

I don't know if I'd take this as a jab soley to Zack Snyder. Marc Webb also did a good share of music videos before doing the Spider-Man films.

Fair point I'd forgotten!