Inspired equally by filmmakers like George Lucas and George A. Romero, writer-director Zack Snyder set out to dazzle audiences from day one of his splashy career.

Gaining a reputation as a tireless, inventive and efficient director of sleek commercials for companies like BMW and Nike throughout the 1990s, he eventually made the leap to feature films by directing a hyperkinetic reimagining of Romero's zombie classic "Dawn of the Dead." Having turned a tidy profit on a modestly budgeted genre picture, Snyder far exceeded studio expectations with his next effort, the highly stylized Spartan epic, "300," a box-office smash based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller.

Snyder went on to mount the big-screen adaptation of "Watchmen," the ground-breaking comic book miniseries written by Alan Moore. Looking to work on something fraught with less potential for controversy, he helmed the CGI family fantasy "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole," then wrote, produced and directed the wildly self-indulgent genre mash-up spectacle "Sucker Punch," about a young girl (Emily Browning) who escapes the real world horrors of a mental asylum by retreating into her own fantasies.

Resuscitating the Superman franchise with the highly-anticipated "Man of Steel" was merely one more make-or-break challenge for the director.

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