Zack Snyder Wants To Make A "Faithful" King Arthur Movie

Say what you will about Zack Snyder, but the man loves big, striking, mythologically-infused visuals. Even when the stories he's telling are lacking, he's often able to craft larger-than-life images that feel like they might be right at home in the pages of an illustrated book of myths.

In a recent interview, the director of Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and the upcoming Snyder Cut of Justice League revealed that he's been thinking about making a King Arthur movie, one that he refers to as "faithful." But exactly what does that approach look like when presented with an ever-evolving legend?

During an interview with The Minutemen (via ComicBookResources), the conversation turned toward medieval and mythological stories, and one of the hosts expressed interest in seeing Snyder address that type of subject matter head on, maybe even in a remake of John Boorman's 1981 film Excalibur, which Snyder is a big fan of – so much so that it appeared on the marquee in Batman v Superman. Snyder's response was interesting:

"I've been working on something, but we'll see," the director said. "I've been thinking about some kind of retelling – real, sort of faithful retelling – of that Arthurian mythological concept. We'll see. Maybe that will come at some point."

As you can tell, this is about as far from a done deal as something gets – it's little more than an idea at this point, so we're still years away from seeing this vision even if it miraculously makes it through the development process and finds funding. (Although Snyder seems to be developing a relationship with Netflix, which has seemingly bottomless pockets, so maybe there's a potential home there.)

In any case, I'm curious about what a Zack Snyder King Arthur movie might look like – especially since the notion of a "faithful" retelling of the Arthurian myth feels incredibly elusive. So the question becomes: faithful to what, exactly? There are conflicting ideas about whether Arthur even existed at all, and variations on his origins and exploits have been added to a shifting foundation for hundreds of years, making it impossible to narrow down one true piece of source material. You can brush away common elements of the story that have appeared in movies and TV, but that wouldn't make this more "faithful" than something like First Knight, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, or any of those other tales – just different.