Fans have been insisting that The Snyder Cut is real and ready to go for years now, which totally explains why when Warner Brothers finally decided to go ahead and release it to HBO Max it required an additional $30 million budget to finish all the post-production. Now, Zack Snyder is headed back to the studio with an addition $70 Million to do a bunch of reshoots. Because of course.
Despite initial reports suggesting otherwise, Zack Snyder’s cut of “Justice League” will contain brand new footage after all. The director will be conducting a week of additional filming with the main cast of the film, an individual with knowledge of the project tells TheWrap.
The so-called “Snyder Cut” of “Justice League” will be a 4-hour-long, episodic presentation on HBO MAX, created with a budget of around $70 million. And while initial reporting held that no additional filming would occur and new material would largely consist of special effects work, that clearly has changed.
The saga of The Snyder Cut is a weird one. When Zack Snyder left the production of Justice League due to a family tragedy, Joss Whedon took over and we were left with a film that was, to put it mildly, a bit of a mess. I actually liked it, but a mess none the less. Ever since, there has been a loud contingent of fans demanding that Warner Bros. #ReleaseTheSnyderCut on social media, because they were looking forward to the grim, dark, gritty, version of the story that Zack Snyder was going to tell. These fans love Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice as well, even though that film is….. well it’s a different kind of mess.
Anyway, these fans have insisted that the so-called “Snyder Cut” of Justice League has existed this whole time and that it be released. Warner Brothers actually decided to do this recently, and the Snyder Bros did rejoice that they were right, despite that it was going to cost a ton more money to actually be finished.
Fast forward to today and Zack Snyder is now shooting a bunch of new footage, after reportedly excising everything that Whedon shot.
So, to recap, a bad movie (which, again, I liked) which had a troubled production has a small but incredibly vocal group of fans who have insisted that a cut of the film created by the original director has existed in a complete form this entire time and should be released to appease them, and now it is taking somewhere between $70 Million and $100 Million (I’m not actually clear whether the budget for these reshoots is in addition to or an expansion of the original $30 million) to actually finish and release.
What a time to be alive.
While I don’t really expect this new, 4 hour episodic release of Justice League to be any better than the theatrical release, there are some upsides. The effects might be more consistent, Henry Cavill’s upper lip (the moustache he grew for Mission: Impossible – Fallout had to be removed digitally) might look natural, and the whole thing might be more tonally consistent.
Of course, it might be a total shit show, too. Who knows!?
The Snyder Cut of Justice League is scheduled for a 2021 release to HBO Max, which means it will hit Crave here in Canada. I sincerely hope it’s good. I shall not hold my breath.