Zack Snyder steps down as Justice League director following daughter’s death

Moviemaker Zack Snyder has stepped down as the director of the much-anticipated Justice League blockbuster to deal with the death of his daughter.
The Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice director’s 20-year-old daughter Autumn took her own life in March (17), prompting Snyder to take a break from work and hire Joss Whedon to complete the Warner Bros. blockbuster.
“I’ve decided to take a step back from the movie to be with my family, be with my kids, who really need me,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter.
Snyder’s wife, Deborah, who is a producer on Justice League, is also taking a break to focus on family matters.
Warner Bros. executives insist the film is still on track for a 17 November (17) release thanks to the work the Avengers filmmaker Whedon has done since stepping in to support his friend.
The news of the death of Snyder’s daughter from his first marriage has been kept private until now, with the family telling only a small inner circle of friends.
“I never planned to make this public,” he says. “I thought it would just be in the family, a private matter, our private sorrow that we would deal with. When it became obvious that I need to take a break, I knew there would be narratives created on the internet. They’ll do what they do. The truth is… I’m past caring about that kind of thing now.”
Justice League stalled as Zack and his wife took a two-week break to deal with the family tragedy.
Snyder tells The Hollywood Reporter he was initially eager to get back to work on the project, adding, “In my mind, I thought it was a cathartic thing to go back to work, to just bury myself and see if that was the way through it. (But) the demands of this job are pretty intense. It is all-consuming.”
The director admits his kids are “all having a hard time”.
“What they are going through is unimaginable, and my heart – our hearts – go out to them,” Warner Bros. Pictures president Toby Emmerich says in a statement.