In the modern age of cinema, it's hardly unheard of for selected movies to receive some kind of "Director's Cut" with additional footage that didn't make it into the theatrically released version and by extension, the physical home release. Sometimes however, movie productions can make dramatic changes before they even get close to gracing the big screen. That can be just as common with test screenings being effective indicators of if something works in a film or needs to be rewritten or reshot, or both. With 2017's 'Justice League' however, things took a rather unfortunate turn.
To understand the situation that presented itself with 'Justice League', we must take a trip back in time to the production of Superman II. After Christopher Reeves debut as the Kryptonian superhero became a commercial success, Superman II was well into filming but things had started to go a bit wrong as tensions developed between Donner who wanted basically full control of the production and the producers & crew. About 75% of the sequel had been finished by Donner when he was removed from the production in March 1979 and replaced by Richard Lester. Lester then went on to complete the movie but also rewrote and reshot a substantial amount of Donner's work in order to receive the directorial credit.
In 2006 however, Richard Donner was finally able to show the world his version of Superman II with the release of the 'Richard Donner Cut' which featured a heap of lost footage that had been shot by him, including footage of Marlon Brando and the original opening and ending. This lead to the film being dramatically different to Lester's version, though it still used a degree of Lester's footage but still meant that Donner finally received his directors credit and his vision was finally completed for all to see.
Which brings us to 'Justice League'.
By this point, 'Batman v Superman : Dawn Of Justice' had received a directors cut in the release of the Ultimate Edition which added an extra half an hour to the movie, allowing for cohesive additions to certain scenes and amped up the rating to R. Yet this is trivial compared to what comes next. In October 2016, production came to an end with Zack Snyder having to step away from the movie after the sad passing of his daughter. Warner Bros drafted in 'Avengers' director Joss Whedon to oversee the post production process. His hiring was the catalyst for the chain of events that followed and resulted in Justice League ultimately bombing.
Lets start with one major fact. By the time Zack stepped away from the project, he had completed his version of the film, having shot everything that he'd wanted in his cut, pending completion of the post production process and this has been confirmed by storyboard artist Jay Olivia and Cyborg actor, Ray Fisher. Warner Bros and Whedon found that Snyder's work on Justice League was too dark and recoloured & regraded a lot of his footage to invoke a brighter & more positive feel. Then Joss Whedon went and rewrote and reshot at least 80 pages of the script, equating to about 80 minutes of the theatrical movie not being Zack Snyder's work at all, bearing in mind that the theatrical cut is 119 minutes long against the apparent 214 minute runtime of Zack Snyder's cut.
Then, the chop.
The then CEO of Warner Bros pictures, Kevin Tsujihara mandated that the theatrical cut be under two hours, which it just about squeezed into its final runtime (by less than a minute including credits). This meant an entire 95 minutes of Snyder's footage was completely chopped to fit Kevin's demands resulting in the theatrical cut being a very wobbly film with little in the way of cohesive storytelling and essentially meaning that the final movie was not at all the same as the one that Zack had shot. Hell, they even got Danny Elfman in to do a new score even though Junkie XL had already completed the mixing on his.
Pivotal scenes where removed including a Darkseid v Ares flashback sequence, Cyborg's origins and his development of his powers, Barry saving Iris from a car accident, additional backstory elements for Arthur Curry that involved Mera, a possible cameo from Martian Manhunter and Alfred meeting Superman. On top of this, pretty much every bit of footage with Henry Cavill was reshot while he had a moustache for his work on Mission Impossible resulting in it having to be removed digitally and we all know how that looked.
Thanks to Zack's continous teasing on his Vero with screengrabs and stills from his cut, we have some assurity that these scenes are still waiting to be seen and appear to have a large degree of completed CGI and VFX. In recent weeks and months, he seems to have amped up the teasing to a new level and more and more of the cast and crew have come out in support of the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut movement, campaigning for Warner Bros to release Zack's version of the movie. Jason Momoa, Gal Gadot, Ray Fisher, Ben Affleck, Ciaran Hinds, Ray Porter, Jay Olivia and even Zack himself are just a handful of those who support the movement with many personalities in the industry also tweeting the hashtag in support and joining the campaign. In fact, at this stage, only Henry Cavill has yet to make any kind of contribution to the #ReleaseTheSynderCut movement but its unlikely that he will as his agent is very careful about his publicity and especially around his commitment to the Superman role.
A recent development has seen Warner Bros and Warner Bros pictures follow Zack on Twitter and the official HBO max social media accounts have liked tweets and instagram posts pertaining to the Snyder Cut campaign but that still doesn't mean much at this stage but Zack continues to encourage us not to give up hope for a release and as long as there's hope, there's the possibility that the Snyder Cut could be on the horizon and the seven truly could be united. We'll see.
It took Richard Donner almost thirty years, there's plenty of time yet, right?
#ReleaseTheSnyderCut
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