In the wake of the release and subsequent reaction to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, much was said and/or written about director Zack Snyder and his future with the DC Extended Universe. Given that the Snyder-helmed Justice League began filming mere weeks after Batman v Superman was released, the filmmaker was already hard at work on the follow-up when a fair amount of backlash began, which then turned to rumors about Snyder’s relationship with Warner Bros. going forward.

So when Collider’s own Steve Weintraub visited the London set of Justice League last week along with a group of reporters, Snyder was asked if he’s been under more corporate pressure this time around, and in response he spoke about the experience of shooting Batman v Superman:

“Yeah, I don’t think so. I would just say that, for me, Batman v Superman, I think there is a slight misconception about the shooting, anyway, about how much pressure there was on us and the pressure on the movie to perform in a certain way. From my point of view, and maybe just because I don’t know how to do it any other way, we make really personal movies. For me, anyway, I love the characters. I love comic books—maybe to a fault sometimes. Like, I dork out on these hardcore aspects of the comic books, because I’m a grownup and I love that part of it. I had a great time making the movie, and I don’t think that Warner Bros., when we were shooting the movie, that there was some sort of corporate mandate to get Batman and Superman in the movie. Chris [Nolan] and I kind of had that idea, and then it just so happened that that was a way toward Justice League—and it came along at a great time for us, as the studio was moving forward with the other DC titles and getting the DCU to exist.”

The filmmaker went on to tout Warner Bros.’ penchant for filmmaker-driven films:

“But I don’t think the sort of birth of Batman v Superman was like some corporate conspiracy to sell tickets or do whatever. I think it just became this great vehicle that had a lot of focus put on it because of where it ended up in the timeline, you know? I think the studio’s been amazing with me, and they are a filmmaker-driven studio. They don’t really do a ton of things by committee. It’s just been a great experience I’ve had with them as a studio… So I think the nice thing about working on Justice League is that it is an opportunity to really blow the doors off of the scale and the bad guys and team-building and all the stuff that I think I could justify as a big, modern comic book movie, if that makes any sense.”

But Warner Bros. isn’t the only entity Snyder has been collaborating with on Justice League. Recently, the studio upped DC Comics CCO Geoff Johns to co-head of DC Films, overseeing the entire DC Extended Universe. Snyder spoke about his working relationship with Johns and praised the DC alum’s unparalleled comics knowledge:

“Geoff and I have had a great working relationship, even on Batman v Superman, and on Wonder Woman we worked together really closely, and we have a project coming up that we want to do together… I can’t talk about that. His knowledge of comics is just crazy. He’s like an encyclopedia of comic books. Like I’ll be like, ‘Hey, is there a weird Lantern from –?’ and he’ll be like, ‘You know…!’ He’s just amazing about keeping everything in canon that I’ve not even heard of —he goes, ‘Yeah, it’s back!’ Like we’ll look through some archive. You know, there’s DC-pedia, but he’s even crazier than that.”

Hmm, did Snyder just make reference to Green Lantern? Perhaps there’s more to the Justice League than meets the eye in the Batman v Superman follow-up.

For much more of our Justice League set visit coverage, peruse the links below: