Christopher Nolan delivered a solid trilogy of Batman films (okay, two really good Batman movies and a competent sequel we begrudgingly accept) and inspired a wave of gritty blockbuster imitators. His Dark Knight trilogy gave us the best Batman movies since Tim Burton’s time with the iconic superhero, which made fans feel a little skeptical about Zack Snyder and Ben Affleck’s plans for the character. In an attempt to soothe your fears — however reasonable and totally justified they may be — Snyder has revealed that he received Nolan’s blessing for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. So that’s something, right?

Like a nervous young man skittishly asking an uptight, over-protective father for his comely daughter’s hand in marriage, Snyder tells Empire he went to Nolan to receive the director’s blessing to introduce a new Batman, and Nolan was about as enthused as you might expect:

“You tell me if you don’t want me to do it,” Snyder told Nolan. After a silence, Nolan said, ‘Well, we don’t own these characters. When you’re done making Batman movies, someone else will [make them].’”

Although Snyder thinks Nolan “found it a little bit hard” to give him the OK, Nolan’s reaction doesn’t sound like he actually cared much, either way. It was heavily rumored that Nolan wasn’t all that interested in making a third Batman film, though he felt compelled to deliver a complete trilogy since Warner Bros. was likely to proceed on a third film with or without him. In the end, we got The Dark Knight Rises, the lesser of the three Dark Knight movies, which pretty much validated the rumors about Nolan’s waning interest in the franchise.

Snyder didn’t exactly need Nolan’s approval to make Batman v Superman, and if anything, publicizing it feels like an overt attempt to win over the more skeptical fans and Nolan loyalists. “Hey bro, your bro said this was okay, so you can be okay with it, okay?” Okay.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (officially endorsed by Christopher Nolan!) hits theaters on March 25. It will be immediately followed by a wave of headlines regarding Nolan’s reaction to the film.

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