The 2017 Justice League, a team-up movie of DC comic book characters, was a bit of a trainwreck through and through. Zack Snyder, who had helmed both Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman worked to finish his trilogy, with various themes and ideas being carried through a three part arc. Then before completing the film, he unexpectedly left the project. At the time, reports said it was due to the tragic death of his daughter. Later it came out he was fired due to differences with the studio. Joss Whedon, director of the first two Avengers movies, also known for Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and more, took over. Massive reshoots happened, resulting in not only whole-scale changes to the original plan for the movie but also issues with Henry Cavill's mustache.
When Justice League premiered that summer, the reviews weren't great. Both critics and fans of the comics panned the film, disliking a number of aspects. I own Man of Steel, BvS (extended!) and Wonder Woman, so I like the movies in the DCEU, but since seeing Justice League I haven't had any desire to re-watch. Even with some fun moments, there was definitely something off and not just the digitally removed facial hair. With an inconsistent tone, it actually weirdly feels like two movies mashed together and is just too different from what preceded it. You can tell this was supposed to be something else. Plus there are a number of scenes in BvS specifically that now make absolutely no sense. Following this film there's been a few others released but it's clear the grand connected universe (trying to copy Marvel) no longer remains a priority for DC. That's the real impact of Justice League.
I don't blame Joss Whedon. He's already made hugely successful movies of this scale, though in those cases he could craft his own vision beginning to end. Here he needed to take over a near fully developed project, inject humor and lighten the mood, and still somehow put together a coherent product. It was too much to ask.
Almost immediately since JL's debut, there's been a movement (if you can call it that) to #ReleaseTheSnyderCut. We didn't know for sure if all filming for Snyder's version was done, so this was always somewhat tongue-in-cheek. No way would there be additional reshoots. As time went on, however, it appeared that only editing would be needed. Recently, even several of the film's stars have joined the call. The drum-pounding continued and I more and more wistfully desired to see the release come to fruition, never believing it would.
Wednesday, I was legitimately shocked to learn it's happening.
HBOMax, a new subscription service (I know, another one), with content from HBO and other AT&T media will launch next week. Next year, it'll have the Snyder Cut. Apparently it's going to cost $20-30 million to do the editing, quite a price for a new version of a somewhat commercially successful but largely critical failure of a film. Either way, I'm pretty happy and I know I'm not the only one. This is how they announced it:
With Snyder confirming it:
It's going to be long. While the final format hasn't been decided yet, it'll either be a supersized (4 hour?) movie or something more like a TV mini-series (6 episodes?). That's certainly a lot but also makes sense considering how much needs to be told.
Now here's the thing. Snyder's movies have their own problems. They're always unnecessarily dark and dour in going for realism. He also always makes them overwrought, overpacking the story. Man of Steel could've been two films, Superman's upbringing and discovery of his powers and then the fight with Zod. Batman vs Superman, while I think it's overly hated, again just has too much going on. If Snyder is given free rein with format, there's a great chance it's an absolute mess. But it's something I'll need to see because it could also be spectacular. At very least we'll get to see where he was going with it all.
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