As the DCU divide deepens, the irony in James Gunn writing Zack Snyder’s best movie is well worth remembering

As expected, James Gunn modestly comparing himself to Superman has lit a fire under one half of the DCU fandom, who can’t stomach the thought of a filmmaker other than Zack Snyder rebooting the Man of Steel.

Even though the two have shown public support for each other on a number of occasions, the gradual erosion of the SnyderVerse has caused a schism in the franchise’s fabric that doesn’t look as if it’s going to be rectified anytime soon. Unless something drastic changes next weekend, the original iteration of the DCU is dead and gone, so maybe it’s time to move on.

That obviously isn’t going to happen as has been made abundantly clear many times over, but the delicious irony is that Gunn wrote the screenplay for Snyder’s best-ever movie. Sure, it’s spicy to suggest that he’s never gotten any better than his feature-length directorial debut, but which of his nine flicks to date has the highest Rotten Tomatoes score of all? Why, it’s 2004’s Dawn of the Dead remake, penned by none other than James Gunn.

Fine, that’s only one metric. Over on Metacritic, what could possibly be Snyder’s top-rated effort from behind the camera? Why, it’s 2004’s Dawn of the Dead remake, penned by none other than James Gunn. You couldn’t possibly make it up, but the facts speak for themselves; on the two most prominent aggregators in the industry, the horror retread is comfortably ranked as the architect of the SnyderVerse’s best, which must really sting when it was born from the mind of the man they now view as public enemy number one.