Like the plot twist from some superhero sequel, deposed DC maven Zack Snyder returned to the Warner Bros. lot on Monday night in a major sign the studio and its once-favorite son are ready to bury the hatchet following a messy split in 2021. The appearance even buoyed the beleaguered backlot, which one exec dubbed “in purgatory” as the Paramount merger idles.

Sources tell Page Six Hollywood that Snyder, who held the reins of the DC universe for the better part of a decade before he and Warner Bros. parted ways — amid arbitration and a quiet settlement — returned to the Burbank lot to host a screening of director John Boorman‘s 1981 Arthurian epic “Excalibur” for staffers.

Snyder received a “hero’s welcome” at the event, spies said, as a full house of motion picture group employees and guests converged, some even standing for a Q&A between the “Man of Steel” director  and studio bosses Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy. (No cameras were allowed, we hear, but popcorn and candy was served.)

De Luca and Abdy launched the movie nights when they joined Warners in 2022 to celebrate the storied studio’s library and its filmmakers.

The popular staff screenings have more recently become a way of rallying the troops. After all, morale is at an all-time low at the studio, whose fate remains uncertain as a coalition of 12 state attorneys general, led by California’s Rob Bonta, tries to block the proposed $110 billion Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger.

One exec — who once opposed David and Larry Ellison’s quest for Warner Bros. — is now more annoyed at Bonta’s “performative” blockade than the inevitable consolidation, and described the collective vibe as “demoralized.”

De Luca and Abdy’s special employee engagements have become quite popular for the dispirited and anxious staff: Last week, “Wonder Woman” helmer Patty Jenkins introduced the original 1982 “Blade Runner.” Top filmmakers — including recent host Oliver Stone, who screened “JFK” — are eager to help executives forget their cares for a few hours with some classic cinema and movie snacks.

But Snyder’s inclusion certainly raised eyebrows, even if nearly all of the executives and creatives he battled to bring his 242-minute “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” to the screen are long gone (several of whom secured their own related settlements).

“What are Mike and Pam thinking?” asked one current executive who lived through the tumultuous period when Snyder’s fans harangued and targeted the studio for enlisting “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” creator Joss Whedon (who also helmed Marvel’s first two “Avengers” movies) to oversee reshoots and post-production on the 2017 “Justice League.”

That film wound up being a schizophrenic superhero stew that squandered DC’s holy trinity of Super Man, Batman and Wonder Woman, and made $661 million worldwide, (a far cry from “Avengers”-level box office and the $1.52 billion benchmark the Marvel franchise set in 2012).