Vipul Samanth
October 24, 2020
Zack Snyder, the initial director of Justice League was fired after the making of the first movie. After the new movie failed in the Box Office completely, fans have realised there's something wrong.
First poster of the movie released in 2016
(Source: Digital Trends)
2017 was officially supposed to deliver the Zack Snyder’s version of the Justice League, which by the way is termed as the ‘original Justice League’ by the fans. But that didn’t happen. The reason being the ongoing conflict between the Warner Bros. executives and director Zack Snyder. Warner Bros. executives didn’t want the movie to have a dark and serious tone. They demanded the movie to be more ‘family friendly’ much like their rival the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Snyder didn’t agree and he was fired.
A new director was hired for the project — the tone and the storyline was changed. Snyder’s 4 hours movie was cut, reshot and changed to a 1hour 59 minutes movie. The altered movie hit the theaters and failed big time at the box office. Fans were quick in realising something was not right. Investigations were carried out by some fans which then led them to the actual truth. As soon as the truth was out on social media, fans decided to protest against the Warner Bros. production.
A hearty two and a half years of peaceful protest, charity works, and social media trends was called ‘#releasethesnydercut’ movement. The PR team of Warner Bros. was soon put to work. Their job was to defame, dismantle and end the Snyder cut movement but they failed. Some critics and you tubers were hired to work against this movement. They tried to convince people that Snyder's cut of the movie didn’t exist. On the other hand the director Zack Snyder was letting his fans know that it did exist by posting behind the scene pictures and answering fan questions on Vero.
The victory was sensed in 2019 as those who were involved in the conflict against the director — were fired by the higher authorities of The Warner Media. A new team was created for the DC movies. Later, Warner Media and AT&T announced their online streaming platform ‘HBO Max’. That’s when speculations started that Snyder’s version will be released on the OTT.
In May 2020, two and a half years of demands were finally answered! Zack Snyder announced the victory of the Snyder Cut Movement. His version of the movie was finally given the green signal by the Warner media, with the help of those at AT&T and HBO Max. It is titled as ‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’ and because the movie is releasing on the OTT platform, the director and the producers have decided to go for a web series featuring 4 episodes. An additional budget of 70 million was given to Zack Snyder by Warner Media to add extra scenes since the movie is now a series.
The first teaser of Zack Snyder’s Justice League was released on August 20, 2020. The teaser received a tremendous response from the audience. The teaser consists of scenes which in many ways thanks the fans for making this release possible. The teaser broke the internet as it became the highest trending teaser among comic book movies and shows, and the highest watched teaser among all the online web series.
The extra shoots kicked off last week. Starring Ben Affleck as Batman, Henry Cavil as Superman, Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, Ezra Miller as Flash, Ray Fisher as Cyborg and Jason Mamoa as Aquaman. This is clearly the most anticipated series of 2021.
Jared Leto, Joe Manganiello and Harry Lennix are also returning to reprise their roles as The Joker, Deathstroke, and Martian Manhunter. According to the sources of Screen Rant, Ryan Reynolds is rumored to have a cameo and the probability of him returning as Hal Jordan aka Green Lantern is incredibly high.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League is scheduled to release on ‘September 5th 2021’ on HBO Max.
Sources: (Snyder Cut, New Indian Express, Screen Rant)
Edited by : Shreya Gupta and Aditya Das