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Zack Snyder has been making movies about gods since he broke through with his stylistic adaptation of Frank Miller’s 300. His Batman and Superman represent archetypal god-like figures, and his recent Netflix action franchise, Rebel Moon, is filled with religious subtext. But in his newest collaboration with the streamer, studios The Stone Quarry and Xilam Animation, executive producer Deborah Snyder, and co-creator Jay Oliva, he takes that to the next level. With Twilight of the Gods, there are no allegories necessary, as the series deals with real (read that as mythological) deities. For Zack Snyder, it came as a relief. “It was actually very relaxing to not have to make it fake,” he laughs as we chat in Netflix’s Hollywood office.
The series follows Sigrid (Sylvia Hoeks), who is on a quest for revenge after her family is killed by the mighty god Thor on her wedding night. That sets off an epic journey that sees our often semi-naked heroine heading into the Norwegian wilds alongside her husband, Leif (Stuart Martin), to put together a god-killing squad.
“Stuart and Sylvia do such a beautiful job,” Zack gushes. “And it’s funny because we had the crew screening last week, and those two met for the very first time,” the director recalls. That might seem unusual, but Deborah tells us, “Some of the series was made during the pandemic.” The giant leaps in remote recording technology meant that the production could keep going in the face of world-changing events, allowing them to enlist actors from around the world. “We recorded in 23 locations around the globe,” Deborah explains. That was thanks to special kits that they sent out to the actors with recording equipment and blankets so that they could record it in their own homes until they could go back into the studios. “It allowed us to have a bigger talent pool,” she smiles.
That talent pool—and production timing—crossed over with their aforementioned Netflix project Rebel Moon, which also took on some unexpected influences from the animated series. “It was funny too because we were working on Rebel Moon, and I think a lot of the Scandinavian influence came from this,” Zack says. Talent from Twilight of the Gods, such as Stuart Martin and Corey Stoll, all made small appearances in Rebel Moon. “We like working with our people,” Deborah explains. “And it let us get cameos because people weren’t working [during the pandemic].”
The pair revealed all this and more in an Q&A ahead of the show’s release on Sept. 19.
Den of Geek: This is such a unique project. What was the origin of Twilight of the Gods?
Zack Snyder: Jay and I were trying to do some animated projects, and we were talking about lots of different things, and he said, “I’ve always wanted to do Norse mythology.” And I said, “Yeah, I’ve always been fascinated by Norse mythology.” Then, when we were pitching Netflix, and they asked us what we wanted to do, we said that we had an interest in Norse mythology. They were the ones who said, “Yeah, we want to see that!” So it was this really organic way that it worked out. And that was years ago.
I think Rahul [Kohli] said that he recorded his role four years ago.
Deborah Snyder: Yup! Because you do that first, right? We also had them record into little cameras for the animators, which was really helpful. And at the same time that we were recording, we had the animators figure out the look, which was a big development. It’s very different from what we expect from “adult animation.”
ZS: Yeah, we looked at a lot of styles. We really went for developing the style over and over. There must be 50—at least—full character designs finished completely head to toe. There are even some 3D versions; we tried everything. I guess my thing was that I just really wanted it to be stylized. We’re just trying to do a cool, artistic style of our own. And we’re not chasing anime, we’re not chasing some Pixar thing, we’re not. Where I felt like we settled was a place where we could just be true to ourselves and say like, “We think this is a cool image, this is beautiful.” And all the backgrounds are gorgeously painted.
It looks mythological; it feels like a folk tale.
DS: That was the whole idea! It’s interesting because we live so much of our career in the live-action world; we didn’t want to do something that was so photorealistic because then…
ZS: Why wouldn’t we have just shot it?
DS: And I do think that whole mythic folk quality lends itself to the 2D approach.
Did it also give you more freedom? How did it feel to throw it all out there and say, “We’re going to show gods, we’re going to show sex, we’re going to show magic in a way you don’t have to worry about budget or bringing it to life?”
ZS: The good thing was once we hit our stride with it aesthetically, all the choices were really easy because we weren’t hemming and hawing over, “Should we show it, should we not show it?” That relaxed attitude towards content allowed us to make it true to itself and a closed loop in terms of aesthetics and morality with elevated levels of violence and sexuality. Thank god for TV-MA. I like TV-MA; it’s a crazy rating.
DS: The other thing that I think the animation allowed for, especially as a producer—sure, there are complexity issues—but we can go to all these different places. We have one episode further down with a dragon where there’s a big epic dragon fight. A lot of the things we’d do if it were live-action would be unaffordable, so we weren’t tied by those constraints. We could have all these creatures, and we could go to all these different places, especially because this is a journey. They’re traveling and picking up their team. Zack loves teambuilding.
ZS: I honestly don’t know why! It’s a real problem. I can’t wait to do a movie where I don’t get the gang together. I don’t know if I’m capable of it, but we’ll have to try and do a movie without putting a gang together and see if it works. But I’ll probably just be like, “Oh, I am loving how the movie’s going, but… what if we put a gang together?”
Speaking of epic quests, it’s been quite a journey for you two to get here. How does it feel to now be sitting down and watching the finished episodes?
DS: I couldn’t believe it was actually happening. And because it’s slow, it’s almost like it’s your part-time job—well, for me as the producer—it’s like something we do over four years every week while working on other stuff. So when we finally did the final mix I was like, “Really, it’s over?” So this part is fun because you almost forget you get to show it to an audience.
ZS: That’s so true. It’s funny to think about it like, “Oh yeah, this is going to get released!”
DS: “It’s not just for me?!?”
So how does it feel now that people are watching it after all these years?
ZS: I’m excited for people to see it. I can’t wait for them to see it. I think they’ll be surprised by the sophistication level of the drama, of this quest that these guys go on, and how rich the mythology is. I’m just really impressed by Sylvia—Sigrid is just amazing as a character. She’s unbelievably stubborn but loving. It’s cool.
DS: Everyone took it seriously; it didn’t matter that it was animation. Even the music, when we brought Hans [Zimmer] and his team of composers on, we were like, “This isn’t just a cartoon.” And they got it!
ZS: Honestly, Hans and his guys have done such a good job. I can’t wait for Twilight of the Gods at the Hollywood Bowl.
All eight episodes of Twilight of the Gods hit Netflix on Sept. 19.
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