I love Zack Snyder as a person but he is at times painfully inarticulate. I think he might have shared once that he has a learning disability. His wife Deborah is the one who can explain things more carefully and thoughtfully in digestible ways.
I wouldn't call Snyder inarticulate. I get that he doesn't go back to 'clarify' something he said when it might've 'come out wrong.' Like the Batman prison **** comment, which was only meant to describe how different Watchmen was from Nolan's Batman films. He isn't always 'checking himself' to make sure his comment was clear to the most uninitiated person. Snyder did say he has dyslexia I believe, which is why I believe some behind-the-scenes shots show he spelled "Lois" as "Louis."
The claim was that Reeves' universe was a "dead end" and that its box office haul somehow did not justify doing a universe outside the DCEU because it would be a disaster. Which is absurd.
Nothing absurd about it. It's purely logical and based on easily predictable circumstances. This idea of the Reeves-verse is an absolute recipe for disaster in DC Comics films. And this has zero to do with Snyder and is true whether or not Snyder ever comes back to DC movies or not. I can elaborate on the Pandora's Box that continuing that separate Reeves universe opens.
You'll have general audiences confused about why there are different versions of the characters out there simultaneously. You'll also have your own directors competing for the best actors to play parts like Catwoman or Penguin. WB will have a strong incentive to reduce using Batman characters in the DCEU because of these issues. With this new Batman film only grossing $750-780 million in the end, it's very hard to imagine they will greenlight solo Batman movies in the DCEU with whomever the DCEU Batman is. That gross doesn't justify flooding the market with multiple tracks of Batman movies (unlike the No Way Home gross, where the market is saying, please flood us with three kinds of Spider-Man movies, please). Batman is a character who has shown vulnerability to overexposure in movies before.
It's very clear the WB plan so far has been to retire Batfleck, and use Keaton just for cameos within the DCEU. Or maybe even make Batgirl the only prominent Bat character in the DCEU. This just deprives the DCEU of synergy with Batman, the kind of synergy that has turned the MCU into a historic success that has blessed comic book fans with being able to see the most obscure characters make it to film. How can we build up to a Legion of Doom in the DCEU when all the development work on Batman villains is happening outside the DCEU? Batman and his related characters NEED to be a VERY ACTIVE part of the DCEU in order to make the broader DCEU a success. The DCEU succeeding is necessary for DC's huge array of characters to become viable as feature films. Without an MCU succeeding in one continuity, Shang-Chi, Captain Marvel, GOTG, Ant-Man, Eternals, Black Widow and even Dr. Strange would likely never have become movies.
Every bit of investment put into an Iron Man, Captain America, Thor or Spider-Man movie in the MCU boosts up the entire brand. It boosts popularity of the Avengers movies, which in turn boost popularity of all of the solo MCU movies that come after. With WB investing their time and creativity in a detached Batman universe, none of that investment can benefit the wider DCEU. And that investment works in the MCU like compounded interest. The financial dividends that synergy provides are staggering and unprecedented in movie history. That's why the MCU moved heaven and earth to get Spider-Man into their universe, and bought an entire company arguably just to get the X-Men in their universe. In light of that, taking Batman OUT of the DCEU shared universe voluntarily looks like one of the worst decisions by a movie studio of all time.
Like I said, those payoffs to the studio pay off for the fans, when they get to see their favorite obscure characters become movie stars. DC's roster has a particularly wide array of viable C-listers, probably a lot more than Marvel does. These are characters that would likely bomb on their own in solo movies with no universe connection (remember Jonah Hex?), but could do solid business at the Ant-Man level in a successful shared universe. Without a shared universe, Green Lantern made just $219,851,172. Just seven years later, with a DC shared universe operating at the highest gear WB has ever had it operating, Aquaman made $1,148,528,393. 'Nuff said. Shared universes, especially authentic ones based on decades of history in the IP, are where the real money is. So not getting the shared universe working as a hot consumer draw creates a huge opportunity cost in lost profits for DC Comics' deep bench of characters.
Stand-alone movies separate from the DCEU don't have to be a complete no-no. If those movies fit into the DC Elseworlds mold, then they might make sense. They would exist in a radically different continuity that could not fit into the DCEU. E.g., Gotham by Gaslight, Red Sun or Dark Knight Returns. These should be one-off, closed-loop stories, and not something that would continue indefinitely. Especially something where the universe is so similar to the DCEU, that any new character added would simply be poaching potential actors and characters from the DCEU. The Joaquin Joker movie is admittedly a gray area, but is probably Elseworldy enough that it doesn't threaten to take away much from the DCEU, especially since it's set in the past.
I understand there is a big segment of comics fandom that more or less hates everything that DC publishes EXCEPT for Batman. And they think Batman should always be lurking in Gotham City, never fighting aliens on another planet. These people are cheering on WB for separating Batman from the DCEU. WB should absolutely ignore them. They are a fly in the ointment to creating the successful shared universe that is the ONLY logical plan for DC films going forward. Despite their protests, they WILL show up for DCEU-connected Batman movies. And maybe even they will be converted into real DC fans by the shared universe eventually.
Would WB sign on to a plan where the next Flash movie is set outside the DCEU? The next Wonder Woman movie? Aquaman? The idea that a Batman movie should be set outside the DCEU seems to be based on the fact that Batman is their most popular character. This is certainly why there are so many filmmakers who want to make their own Batman movie. But his popularity is the EXACT REASON WHY Batman should be kept in the continuity of the DCEU on the strictest basis. He and his supporting characters offer the strongest opportunity for the DCEU to gain in popularity, which is the plan that will pay off the biggest by far for the studio and DC fans.
