Director Roland Emmerich has built his career on making stuff blow up real nice, but apparently he’s a little picky about what he likes to be the cause of that stuff blowing up. Giant storms, planet-wide extinction events, and—of course—alien invaders are all cool with him, but a dude in a cape like Man Of Steel’s Superman? No way, Emmerich isn’t down with that silly crap.
That comes from an interview with The Guardian during which Emmerich suggested that his brand of mass destruction is more believable than what you see in superhero movies. As he explains it, his films are always about a “regular Joe Schmo” becoming an “unlikely hero,” but the stuff that Marvel makes is just “people in funny suits running around.” Basically, Emmerich simply doesn’t like “people in capes,” because he thinks it’s “silly” when a guy dresses up and flies around. Emmerich pins this on the fact that he grew up in Germany, which doesn’t really share America’s obsession with putting on a flashy costume and hurling evil-doers into easily explodable buildings.
Presumably, this all means we won’t be seeing Emmerich direct a superhero movie any time soon, so Zack Snyder is just going to need to step up his commitment to blowing things up.