After one of the most passionate fan campaigns of all time, longtime supporters of director Zack Snyder are finally going to see his version of the Justice League movie with HBO Max’s The Snyder Cut. After leaving production on the 2017 superhero movie following a family tragedy, Snyder has now revealed that the main reason he wanted to return to tell his story was to fulfil the promise he made to the movie’s cast.
“I pitch them [Warner Brothers] the movie, right? Like I go, you’re gonna be this. This is where it’s going, right? Justice League. And when I talk about Jason [Momoa] or Ezra [Miller], it’s starting, it’s like way back to BvS years ago. Same with Amy [Adams]… it was about, that we were going somewhere? And I feel like when this opportunity arrived and came to me, I got this call. Toby Emmerich called me to say ‘Hey, is this thing you’d be interested in doing?’ and it was shocking frankly. I wasn’t ready, but thinking about it, one of the big things that got me to say ‘all right’ to this huge job, it’s crazy, but it was that commitment I made to those actors about, like, let’s finish this. Let me put it back. Let me honor what we talked about creating? Because I just, famously I’ve never seen the theatrical cut of Justice League but I can only imagine that it’s not what we talked about.”
Before departing the 2017 DC movie, the plan had always been for Zack Snyder to make two Justice Leagues, Justice League Part One and Justice League Part Two. Of course, this was changed under the circumstances, with the director and Warner Bros. agreeing to create a HBO Max limited series for The Snyder Cut. Clearly, the director felt deeply loyal to his cast, with his commitment to them ultimately leading him to return for The Snyder Cut.
The Snyder Cut will follow a similar outline to director Joss Whedon’s version of Justice League that audiences saw in theaters. Following the death of Superman in Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Batman and Wonder Woman recruit the Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg to form the Justice League and protect the world from Darkseid and his army of Parademons, who seek the three Mother Boxes.
Despite reshoots reportedly adding only 5 minutes of new footage, The Snyder Cut is said to be making a lot of changes from what we saw on the big screen. The movie is set to feature Joe Manganiello reprising the role of Deathstroke, the arrival of Ray Porter as the tyrannical cosmic overlord Darkseid, Harry Lennix as Martian Manhunter, and even the return of Suicide Squad’s Jared Leto as the Joker. The studio has put a lot of effort and capital in allowing Snyder to finally realise his vision, with reshoots reportedly costing somewhere in the region of $70 million.
The Snyder Cut is set to be released around early to mid-2021 on HBO Max. The plan is to initially release it as a four-part miniseries, with each episode being an hour long. This will then be followed by a version that combines the episodes into a four-hour movie epic. According to Snyder, fans can expect to see a trailer very soon. This comes to us from Beyond The Trailer.
