The crazy story behind Zack Snyder's Justice League

[source: digital insight]

Recently, the newest directorial outing by Zack Snyder- “Army of the Dead” has been released on the Netflix streaming platform.

Snyder, famous for his work on comic book adaptations such as “300”, “Watchmen” and” Man of Steel”, has expressed his unwillingness to work on more comic book movies [1]. Yet a particular, megapopular Hashtag may prove you to think otherwise.

Yes, I am talking about the” RestoreTheSnyderVerse” and its predecessor “RealiseTheSnyderCut”.

The hashtag's story is a long one and frankly a bizarre one. They refer to Warner Brothers creation, the DC universe line of movies that include projects like “Batman V Superman”, “Suicide Squad” and Wonder Woman”. A big chunk of those movies was initially directed by the aforementioned Zack Snyder. Specifically, Zack aimed to create a trilogy of movies that consisted of Man of Steel 2013, Batman v Superman and Justice League. All of those movies had mixed reviews, yet received an almost cult-like following from its fan base.

Unfortunately, while the last movie of the trilogy Justice League was initially directed by Snyder, he had to step down due to his adopted daughter’s, Autumn, suicide on March 12, 2017.

The filming was finished by Joss Whedon, another prominent comic book director, famous for his works on such box-office smashes as Avengers and its sequel. Upon its release in 2017 it also received mixed reviews, yet it's what came after its initial screenings that peeks our attention.

The movie, due to the change of its director, was heavily altered and due to studios intervention, a lot of footage filmed by Snyder was never used [2]. After the director shared some of his ideas for his version of the movie, a fan campaign for realizing a full, unaltered Directors cut of the movie became a thing in social media. It grew beyond a simple hashtag. A billboard spouting the hashtag was put at Times Square [3] and even a plane was rented [4], to tow the banner of the campaign. Perhaps, the most heart warming part was when fans raised more than half a million for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, just to support Zack and his family after their loss [5].

The campaign was documented in a book called “Release the Snyder Cut: The Crazy True Story Behind the Fight That Saved Zack Snyder's Justice League” by Sean O'Connell.

The campaign wasn’t without its controversies, as various toxic fans went online to threaten and harass critics of the movie and the campaign itself. Those fans were condemned by Warner Bros, but somewhat swept under the Rug by the director himself and other supporters on social media [6].

The situation escalated even more, when various actors from Justice League like Gal Gadot and Ray Fisher spoke out about their mistreatment by Joss Wheadon during the movie's filming. Quote “Joss Wheadon's on-set treatment of the cast and crew of Justice League was gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable, '' said Ray Fisher [7].

The campaign continued through the years, with Zacks Snyder fueling the fire with original concepts and his ideas for the movie, as well as further controversies with Wheadon and Warner Bros management as new details surfaced.

Yet, finally, in February 2020 the Zack Snyder’s Justice League was announced, planned to be released on the upcoming streaming service HBO MAX [8]. Fans rejoiced as their campaign gave fruit to what they wanted.

It was truly a marvel; all of the scenes were finished in post-production. The movie was re-edited by Zack Snyder himself and the director (to Warner Bros disapproval) even filmed some extra scenes. The movie was expected to be so long, that initially there were plans to make it into a limited series, yet those plans got dropped.

The movie finally got to HBO MAX on March 23, 2021. It got decent t reviews and good viewership. It got a 71 % approval rating on the aggregator site, Rotten tomatoes, far better than the originals' cut of 40% [9]. The critics' opinions varied, from calling the movie “overly long and there's not enough connective tissue.” [10]. To praise it, saying “No matter the fanbase that surrounds the film, this film is for Zack Snyder and he deserves all the praise he can get.” [11]

The general consensus was that the 4-hour movie was better than the original cut. And with 94% users score, the fans couldn’t get enough out of it.

It seems like a sure win, doesn't it? The director got to fully realize his vision, the fans got what they wanted, plus Snyder already mentioned his unwillingness to work on another comic book movie (although the aforementioned extra-scenes that Zack filmed were quite explicit teasers towards a sequel, a sequel Warner Bros executives claimed they don't want to fund [12]). Something understandable, since the studio already moved on with a more successful, both critically and financially plan for their DC properties.

Well, the story tends to repeat itself and now the new hashtag on the rise is “RestoreTheSnyderVerse''a campaign that strives for having Zack Snyder film the supposed two sequels to the justice league mentioned by Snyder himself as well as creating a Batman movie starring Ben Affleck and a Sequel to 2013’s “Man of Steel” [13].

The “releaseTheSnyderCut'' campaign leaves me with mixed feelings. On one hand it is a great showcase of how modern social media gives power to the people and how coming together to achieve a common cause may lead to fruitful results. Yet on the other hand, the campaign gave power to harassers and even caused death threats. There was also a sense of entitlement towards practically forcing a studio to give creative freedom to a director, while also highly criticizing and expressing hate towards said studio. There is also the issue of giving power to a director, who might have not needed it. Yes, Snyder didn’t get to finish his movie on his own terms initially, but he was already working on a huge project on Netflix with “Army of the Dead”, where he got to truly create what he wanted.

The consequences of the new campaign are yet to be seen. Yet I hope that similar movements will power other directors, someone who genuinely needs a voice like people of color and female directors, who are still catastrophically underrepresented in the field [14]. We need to strife for far more than just another highly paid white male getting empowered to fully realize his movie.