After years of fans demanding it, Justice League: The Snyder Cut is finally almost upon us! The project was first confirmed by WarnerMedia and director Zack Snyder this summer at DC Fandome, and now we finally have a release date!
Snyder recently hosted a public Q&A segment on his personal Vero account where he let slip to a fan that his massive four-hour director’s cut of the film is coming even sooner than we think! Justice League: The Snyder Cut, now a four-part miniseries event rather than one incredibly long film, will be dropping on HBO Max in March 2021. Snyder is also hoping that the project will see a theatrical release as well, although this has not yet been confirmed as happening.
“I understand and of course respect your feelings and I just hope I can wipe that version out of existence with what you see in March” said Snyder in reply to a fan’s comment regarding the previously released theatrical version of Justice League from 2017.
Snyder was originally slated to direct Justice League for Warner Bros., but midway through shooting the film he stepped down from directing duties due to a a sudden tragedy within his family. Warner Bros. hired Joss Whedon, who famously directed the first two Avengers films for Marvel Studios, to come on board and take over directing duties for this DC Comics team up film; likely hoping to replicate the success he had with Marvel’s massive crossover films.
Whedon shot a decent amount of new footage for the film that lightened the tone, added in out-of-place jokes, and dropped several sub-plots from the film. Whedon’s version of Justice League released theatrically in 2017 to a mix of middling-to-negative reviews from both fans and critics alike. The film we ended up with was a hodge-podge of the work of two drastically different directors with clashing styles and it shows. The film is a muddled mess of half thought out ideas that largely don’t work, which are likely what caused it to immensely underperform at the box office. Many thought that was the end of the Justice League movie’s saga, but apparently it was only the beginning.
For the last three years Zack Snyder fans have been demanding that Warner Bros “release the ‘Snyder Cut‘” of Justice League on social media. WarnerMedia finally announced that they would be funding the project to bring Zack Snyder’s true vision of a Justice League movie to life as a four-hour long miniseries event exclusively available on their HBO Max streaming service. While Snyder claimed for some time now that the film was “ready” and only needed some visual effects work, WarnerMedia has poured an additional $70 million into making this project a reality.
This additional funding is going towards shooting additional footage with key cast members including Ben Affleck (Batman), Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman), Henry Cavill (Superman), Ray Fisher (Cyborg), and Ezra Miller (The Flash), as well as all new footage with an expanded cast that is set to include Jared Leto (The Joker) and Joe Manganiello (Deathstroke), and of course completing visual effects work. The new footage was reportedly shot over the course of eight days earlier this year.
Snyder recently told EW that he believes the new footage he shot will likely earn the four-hour mini-series event an R-rating with the MMPA. Snyder said-
Here’s one piece of information nobody knows: The movie is insane and so epic and is probably rated R — that’s one thing I think will happen, that it will be an R-rated version, for sure. We haven’t heard from the MPAA, but that’s my gut.
When asked just what it was about the new footage that would garner such a rating, Snyder said-
There’s one scene where Batman drops an F-bomb. Cyborg is not too happy with what’s going on with his life before he meets the Justice League, and he tends to speak his mind. And Steppenwolf is pretty much just hacking people in half. So (the rating would be because of) violence and profanity, probably both.
This potential R-rating should only really affect Justice League: The Snyder Cut if it receives a theatrical release, which is something that Snyder is lobbying to have happen sometime in 2021. He has often said that his preference would be to have a theatrical release alongside the project’s premiere on HBO max. A decision does not appear to have been made yet by WarnerMedia regarding this, but recent comments from Snyder suggest that things are moving in that direction.
Warner Bros. recently announced plans to release every film set for it’s 2021 release slate on their HBO Max streaming service simultaneously with their theatrical releases, so doing the same for this project that was planned exclusively for the streaming service does not seem too drastic a departure from those plans.
Director Zack Snyder’s true vision of his project, Justice League: The Snyder Cut, is set to release in March 2021 on the HBO Max streaming service, and potentially in theaters if Snyder has anything to say about it. The four-part event series is set to have a runtime of around four-hours.
Are you excited to finally get to see Justice League: The Snyder Cut in just a few short months? Do you think it should get a theatrical release too? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below and be sure to stick around Geek Anything for all the latest Justice League news!
