For the past two and a half years, one of the most talked-about films in recent memory has been the DC Extended Universe’s 2017 outing, Justice League… and not exactly for the best reasons. Simply put, the film that was released to theaters was far from being the version of it that director Zack Snyder had envisioned after he was forced to step away from the production due to deeply tragic circumstances. And because of this, the film was yet another critical flop for the DCEU at a time where they were struggling immensely to match the utterly dominant success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It also ended up being a rather notorious financial flop as it was unable to break-even on its hefty $300 million budget. But while the DCEU has since managed to move on from this with more critically and financially successful outings, fans of both the franchise and Zack Snyder immediately began pushing for the release of his version of Justice League, with the hashtag #ReleasetheSnyderCut quickly becoming a staple of modern fandom’s vernacular. Their efforts to get this version of the film released ranged from letter-writing campaigns to earning the full support of several key figures in the industry, including those who worked on the film and, of course, Zack Snyder himself. And after all this time, this fabled cut of the film will finally see the light of day as Snyder recently announced that it will make its official debut on WarnerMedia’s new streaming service, HBO Max, in 2021. However, as genuinely great as it is that Snyder has finally been given the chance to showcase his version of Justice League, today we’re going to delve a bit further into everything that led to this exact moment. In doing so, not only will we reiterate exactly why the DCEU has often struggled to match the quality of the MCU, but we’ll also be addressing how a lot of this movement has been fueled by incredibly toxic fans who have very much paved the way for this current age of toxic fandom.
First off, let’s start by going over Zack Snyder’s affiliation with the DCEU, which officially began in 2013 with the Superman reboot Man of Steel. For both DC and Warner Bros, this was their second major attempt at a reboot of the Superman franchise after their previous attempt, 2006’s Superman Returns, was both a critical and financial underperformer. Luckily for them, this was right around the time that Christopher Nolan had just completed working on his trilogy of Batman films, AKA the Dark Knight trilogy, which were easily some of the most critically-acclaimed and financially successful superhero films at the time. Because of this, Nolan was brought on to spearhead Man of Steel’s production, which meant that while he wasn’t going to direct it, he would still be heavily involved with it with the expectation that it would match the overall atmosphere of the Dark Knight trilogy. Nolan reteamed with his Dark Knight trilogy co-writer David S. Goyer to write the film, and after considering filmmakers like Darren Aronofsky, Matt Reeves, and Ben Affleck (who, of course, would factor into the franchise at a later date), Zack Snyder was chosen to direct the film. At this point, Snyder was easily one of the studio’s most prominent filmmakers with hits such as the 2007 adaptation of Frank Miller’s 300 and his incredibly ambitious adaptation of the seminal graphic novel Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Sure, he had just come off a rather notorious critical and financial flop with 2011’s Sucker Punch, based on his own original concept, but that didn’t stop Snyder in the slightest from taking the helm on the next major incarnation of the Last Son of Krypton.
Man of Steel was easily one of the most anticipated films of 2013, and upon its release… it ended up being arguably the most polarizing film of that year. Critics and audiences were truly split down the middle when it came to their thoughts on the film, namely due to how Snyder (and, by extension, Nolan and Goyer) delivered a radically different take on the title character. For some folks, they were totally fine with this as they felt that it was something that Superman needed for what was meant to be a more modernized take on the character. For others, however, it was a bit too much, especially due to things like the film’s utilization of destruction imagery that felt too similar to 9/11 and the controversial moment where Superman kills the main antagonist, General Zod, by snapping his neck despite his traditional ‘no-killing’ mandate from the comics. Nevertheless, the film was a solid hit at the box-office and grossed over $668 million worldwide, thus paving the way for Warner Bros to immediately begin laying the groundwork for its own cinematic universe to rival the MCU. While it was initially implied that the plan was to do at least one more Superman-centric feature before getting into the whole ‘cinematic universe’ angle, that idea seemed to change when the first details of the film were revealed at the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con. After having Harry Lennix (who played General Swanwick in Man of Steel) set the mood by reciting a passage from the iconic miniseries that was Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, it was instantly made clear that the next installment of the DC Extended Universe would be a crossover between Batman and Superman. And since Christian Bale had already completed his turn as Batman in Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, this new film would serve as the official debut of the DCEU’s interpretation of the Dark Knight that would be heavily inspired by the grizzled and jaded version of the character from Dark Knight Returns.
After a highly publicized casting search that included names like Josh Brolin and Jon Hamm, Ben Affleck was officially cast as Bruce Wayne AKA Batman. Admittedly, though, Affleck’s casting initially drew an intensely negative response from fans, namely due to his disastrous previous role in a superhero film when he played Marvel’s Daredevil in the 2003 film of the same name. At the same time, though, Affleck was experiencing a major career resurrection thanks to his work as a director on Gone Baby Gone, The Town, and 2012’s Best Picture winner, Argo. Thus, the most exciting aspect of Affleck’s casting was that it immediately led to him being given the opportunity to direct the first solo outing for his version of the character. After that, further announcements then revealed that Batman wasn’t going to be the only new superhero appearing in the film. First, it was announced that the third and final member of DC’s ‘Trinity’, Wonder Woman, would make her debut in the film as well, which would also be the character’s first official appearance in a live-action film. Gal Gadot was cast in the role and, like Affleck, experienced some harshly negative blowback from fans when the initial news broke of her involvement. Soon afterward, it was then revealed that The Flash (Ezra Miller), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) would all make cameos as well to build up hype for their larger roles in the upcoming Justice League film which, of course, Zack Snyder was also slated to direct. Thus, while a lot of the build-up for the film was clearly impacted by the polarizing nature of Man of Steel and how fans reacted to Snyder’s casting choices, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was still widely considered to be one of the most highly anticipated films of 2016. At this point, it was now very much clear that it was meant to be the official kick-starter for Warner Bros and DC’s own, unique spin on a superhero-centric cinematic universe.
The film finally hit theaters on March 25th, 2016, and if you thought that the reception towards Man of Steel was rough… well, it was about to get a whole lot worse for DC and Warner Bros. Upon its release, Batman v Superman was utterly savaged by critics who felt that the story was incredibly convoluted and that the film itself was far too dour. Simply put, this wasn’t even close to being the same kind of situation that Man of Steel ended up in where there was a genuine 50/50 split between its fans and its critics. When it came to Batman v Superman… most people hated it. This also translated to its run at the box-office where, despite a $166 million opening weekend and a worldwide gross of over $873 million worldwide, it was considered a financial disappointment since it didn’t reach the studio’s projected total of $1 billion. By comparison, the MCU’s big ensemble picture of that year, Captain America: Civil War, instantly outmatched BvS in every conceivable way with a $179 million opening weekend, a worldwide gross of over $1.1 billion, and perhaps most importantly, vastly superior reviews from critics and audiences. However, when it comes to Dawn of Justice’s initial release, it soon became known that some of its biggest shortcomings weren’t exactly Zack Snyder’s fault when it was revealed that he was forced to cut around half an hour of what was originally meant to be a three-hour film. It was reported that the biggest reason for this decision was that the studio was uncertain about the original cut’s box-office potential, especially since it would’ve garnered an R rating instead of the more genre-friendly PG-13 rating. Luckily for Snyder, he was able to make his version available to the public when the ‘Ultimate Edition’ of the film was released on Blu-Ray and digital. And upon its release, many agreed that while it may not have been enough to sway the film’s most vocal critics, it was, at the very least, a far superior cut since many of the sequences that were taken out resulted in the theatrical cut suffering from some significant plot-holes.
Despite this, however, the damage was already done. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was meant to be DC and Warner Bros’ answer to what Marvel Studios had managed to accomplish with the Marvel Cinematic Universe… and it ended up being one of the most despised blockbusters of recent memory. As you might have guessed, this immediately began to impact future installments of the franchise. The other big DCEU release of 2016, Suicide Squad, ended up having a troubled production largely due to the studio’s efforts to try and address many of the issues that critics had with Batman v Superman. And yet, as a result, Suicide Squad yielded the exact same results as BvS; it was commercially successful but critically panned. Luckily for both DC and Warner Bros, they did end up having their first big hit the following year with Wonder Woman. Not only did it manage to avoid any of the issues that BvS and Suicide Squad endured during its production, but it was easily the most well-received installment of the franchise to date as it was widely touted for forgoing the overly grim atmosphere of the franchise’s previous installments. And from the looks of it, it seemed like this would also be the case with the DCEU’s other big 2017 release, especially since this was going to be the biggest one of them all, Justice League. Following all the intense criticism that stemmed from Batman v Superman’s overly dour tone, it was widely reported that Justice League was not going to end up the same way and would be far lighter in tone by comparison. And while later reports noted that the film would have to undergo some major reshoots after early test screenings didn’t go too well, everything seemed to be going all right for the production. But then, of course, as we all know, it all came crumbling down, and unfortunately, it all began with a devastating family tragedy.
On March 12th, 2017, Snyder’s 20-year-old daughter Autumn committed suicide. While Snyder did continue to work on Justice League for the next two months, he and his wife Deborah (his long-time producer) then proceeded to announce that they would be stepping away from the production in the wake of the loss of their daughter. And so, Joss Whedon, who had already been brought on to help work on script re-writes, was put in charge of both the reshoots and post-production. Whedon, of course, was already quite familiar with the superhero genre thanks to his work as the director of the first two Avengers films, and before the film’s release, it was reported that Whedon would be doing his best to maintain the vision that Snyder had for the film. But when the film finally came out… it ended up telling a completely different story. Immediately upon its release, both critics and audiences noted how the film was an absolute mess in terms of its tone. And while it was initially reported that Whedon’s additions to the film would be generally minor at best, it was very much clear that he had re-shot much of the film and that only a few moments in it were leftover from Snyder’s version, resulting in a complete hodge-podge of clashing directorial visions. Thus, Justice League became yet another critical flop for the DCEU, and even worse, this time it was also a financial flop since it wasn’t able to break-even on its $300 million budget, which made it one of the most expensive films of all-time. And because of its failure, the entire franchise was put through a complete reshuffle. Key figures like Geoff Johns and Jon Berg left the studio while plans for a Justice League sequel were canceled in favor of solo films that didn’t rely on the shared universe narrative. And in 2019, after he had already stepped down from directing the next Batman film, Ben Affleck announced that he was officially stepping down from the title role. Thus, Robert Pattinson will now take on the role of Batman for director Matt Reeves in The Batman, which is set to hit theaters on October 1st, 2021.
Now for the record, today’s post is not going to delve into the specific details of the changes that Whedon made to Justice League and the noteworthy scenes from Snyder’s version that were left out. Simply put, that’s another post for another time. But to sum up everything that we’ve gone through so far, I think it’s safe to say that of the three DC Extended Universe films that Zack Snyder has directed, his first one, Man of Steel, was the only entry where he wasn’t considerably hindered by studio interference. But because Man of Steel was so polarizing due to its radically different take on Superman, I can imagine that Warner Bros began to show some concern over the direction that the franchise was heading in, especially since it wasn’t as financially successful as Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy despite his direct involvement in it. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why Batman was brought in for the next film to try and improve its box-office potential even if it came at the cost of not doing a proper follow-up to Man of Steel. But, of course, the biggest story that came out of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’s production was how Snyder was forced to cut out a full half-hour of the film. It’s been rumored that another big reason why he had to do this was that, supposedly, he didn’t have the same kind of directorial clout that someone like James Cameron has to make a massive three-hour blockbuster. However, this also meant that the sequences that were being cut were ones that were utterly pivotal to the story, resulting in some incredibly egregious plot-holes. Thankfully, this ended up being one of those cases where this occurred near the end of production, effectively allowing Snyder to release his version of the film on home video without the need for any extensive reworking of the theatrical cut. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for Justice League. His version of it was far from finished when he stepped away from production and would’ve required a lot of extra money to finish a film that was already sporting one of the largest budgets in film history. With that in mind, it goes without saying that many of the issues with Justice League are ones that can’t be attributed to Snyder since he had nothing to do with the theatrical cut due to immensely tragic circumstances that were far beyond his control.
However, if you’ll allow me to debunk one of the biggest myths that has been perpetrated by the DCEU fandom, it’s the idea that all the film’s problems were entirely Joss Whedon’s fault. Ever since the theatrical cut’s release, Whedon has been the primary target of the #ReleasetheSnyderCut faithful for ‘destroying’ Snyder’s vision with the new material that he shot. However, what these folks tend to overlook is the fact that, in a scenario that was obviously much different than what happened with Snyder, Whedon was also heavily screwed over by the production. In his case, it primarily stemmed from the fact that the two months of reshoots that he presided over began in July of 2017… just 4 months before the film’s November release date. And so, given all the information that has revealed that Snyder’s contributions to the theatrical cut only amounted to a few select scenes, this means that Whedon had to rework almost all of what was set to be one of Warner Bros’ biggest tent-pole releases in less than half a year. In other words, all those criticisms surrounding the film’s mediocre visual effects suddenly make a lot more sense when you realize that the VFX artists who worked on it had barely any time to finish them. Now to be clear, everything that I just brought up here doesn’t mean that I’m ‘defending’ the changes that Joss Whedon made to the film. While I am a fan of much of Whedon’s work from Firefly and its film adaptation Serenity to, of course, his Avengers films, even I can agree that this is some of his worst material when it comes to the snappy dialogue that he’s well-known for. But at the end of the day, you can’t really blame the theatrical cut of Justice League solely on him since it’s very much clear that time wasn’t on his side.
Ultimately, the failure of Justice League was mainly the result of Warner Bros not recognizing the fact that they were clearly rushing it so that they could compete with the Avengers films that Marvel Studios was making. They were so locked in on that November 2017 release date that it didn’t even matter that the reshoots for it couldn’t happen until July of that year. This, of course, spawned one of the biggest stories that surrounded these reshoots; the fact that it occurred during the production of a different film, Mission Impossible – Fallout, which Superman himself, Henry Cavill, was also starring in. He also notably sported a mustache for that film, and Paramount (the studio behind the Mission Impossible franchise) wasn’t keen on having Cavill shave it off for the Justice League reshoots. Thus, Cavill had to keep his facial hair for the reshoots, resulting in the most widely mocked visual effects in the entire film… the CGI that had to be used to erase it off his face. Clearly, Warner Bros should’ve just pushed the film back to 2018 so that Zack and Deborah Snyder would have enough time to mourn the loss of their daughter and properly return to the production. After all, that’s exactly what happened with both of Snyder’s previous DCEU films so that he and his crew could have more time to work on them. Man of Steel was originally set to come out at the end of 2012 before it was pushed back to June 2013. And as for Batman v Superman, it was originally meant to come out in July 2015 before being pushed back nearly a full year and ultimately settling for its final March 2016 release date. Now admittedly, at the time of Justice League’s release, 2018 was shaping up to be an incredibly packed year for the superhero genre. The MCU had the next Avengers film, Infinity War, along with Black Panther and Ant-Man and the Wasp, the X-Men franchise was set to release its next main installment, Dark Phoenix, along with the sequel to Deadpool and a spin-off, The New Mutants, Sony had the Spider-Man spin-off Venom and even the DCEU had its next big release, Aquaman. And yet, not long into 2018, both Dark Phoenix and The New Mutants were pushed back (Dark Phoenix to 2019, New Mutants… well, we’ll get to that one another time). So yeah… there really wasn’t any kind of excuse at this point as to why Warner Bros didn’t just delay Justice League back a year.
But at the end of the day, these disastrous results were exactly what Warner Bros and DC needed so that they could finally realize that they were foolishly rushing the development of the DC Extended Universe. Instead of efficiently building up the franchise with solo installments that both properly introduced us to its main protagonists and gradually expanded the universe like the MCU did, they decided to just skip ahead to Justice League after only a few films. Thus, when Justice League came out, Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman were the only members of the titular group to have had major roles in previous installments while the Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg were basically making their official franchise debuts with almost little to no buildup. Sure, they had all previously appeared in Batman v Superman and Flash had also made an appearance in Suicide Squad, but only as minor (and nearly inconsequential) cameos. In other words, to reiterate a point that I made a few months back in my Top 12 Films of 2019 list when I ranked Shazam at the #7 spot, it was like if Marvel had decided to do the first Avengers film right after Iron Man 2, completely ignoring Thor and Captain America’s first solo features. If that was the case, then the only instances that would’ve hinted at their future appearances would’ve been the prototype of Cap’s shield seen in Tony Stark’s basement and the post-credits scene of Iron Man 2 where Agent Coulson arrives at the crash site of Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir. Thankfully, though, Marvel Studios was smart enough to not do that. Unfortunately, you can’t really say the same for the DCEU since, apparently, they didn’t want to be bogged down by what they perceived to be the increasingly routine nature of traditional superhero origin stories.
But to reiterate a different point that I made in that Top 12 Films of 2019 list, I’d argue that another problem for the DCEU early on was that it tried a bit too hard to ‘not be Marvel’. And for the record, when I say “not be Marvel”, that’s primarily in reference to the long-standing stigma against the MCU films that claims that they’re nothing more than kid-friendly comedies, especially in the wake of Marvel being purchased by Disney in 2009. Now sure, it’s true that MCU films are usually light-hearted affairs that are often dominated by the comedic banter between characters, but if there’s one point that I’ve hopefully gotten across the most these past few years, it’s that they’re much more than just silly comedies. In fact, in the years since this mindset started becoming more common within the DCEU fandom, I believe that films like the culturally relevant Black Panther and the emotionally charged duology of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame have been more than enough proof against the claim that the MCU is ‘just for kids’. Nevertheless, it’s truly astounding how much the hardcore side of the DCEU fandom utterly despises the light-hearted style of the MCU films, almost as if they believe that dark and gritty narratives are the only worthy routes that a superhero film should take instead of being the fun and entertaining blockbusters that they normally are. As you might have guessed, this is one of the biggest reasons why the hardcore DCEU faithful usually prefer Zack Snyder’s DCEU films instead of some of the franchise’s more critically successful outings. In fact, even Snyder has distanced himself from the more light-hearted installments of the superhero genre by stating that it simply isn’t the kind of material that he prefers. And so, with all this in mind, I think it’s safe to say that the time has finally come for me to say something that I know damn well will outright infuriate the #ReleasetheSnyderCut faithful… and yet is very much something that needs to be said at this point. To be clear, what I’m about to say is not meant to be a personal dig against Snyder, especially given the circumstances behind his departure from Justice League. But at the end of the day… Zack Snyder probably wasn’t the best choice to be the director who was meant to spearhead the genesis and future of DC’s brand-new cinematic universe.
Now to be clear, I’m not saying that I think Snyder is a terrible director. He’s certainly proven himself to be one of the best visually-driven filmmakers in the business and that is very much apparent in every film that he’s made. And yet, as great as he is as a visual director, he’s been less successful when it comes to story and characters. Some would say that his adaptation of Watchmen is the exception to this, but despite Snyder’s considerable efforts to stay faithful to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ seminal graphic novel, many have argued that this was more from a visual perspective rather than a narrative one. But to go back to what I just mentioned earlier about Snyder’s preferences when it comes to superhero narratives, if he wants to do superhero films that are more like Watchmen, then that’s totally fine. He’s completely within his rights as a filmmaker to do those kinds of films. However, I also feel that this kind of nihilistic philosophy applies better to the likes of niche properties like 300 and Watchmen rather than mainstream characters like Batman and Superman that have appealed to audiences of all ages. This is especially the case with children because, despite what some members of the DCEU fandom may claim, comic-book superheroes are usually marketed towards the younger demographic. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, by way of Snyder’s intended 3-hour cut, is not even close to being geared towards kids. Instead, it’s a dark, dour, and incredibly violent R-rated flick that sees the title characters act in generally unheroic ways. And it all culminates with one of the most idealistic heroes of the entire genre, Superman, dying in an incredibly gruesome manner just so they could pay homage to the infamous storyline from the comics in which he dies after an intense battle with Doomsday. Simply put, that probably wasn’t the best idea for a major studio tentpole release that was being marketed to the widest audience possible.
By comparison, other installments of the DCEU have done a far better job when it comes to developing these characters rather than just being a case of style over substance. Snyder may have been the one who brought Wonder Woman to the screen in Batman v Superman, but it was Patty Jenkins who made her a genuine icon and quite arguably the MVP of the franchise by way of her solo film. And while Snyder may have also set the stage for Aquaman’s franchise debut, it was James Wan who took Jason Momoa’s potentially controversial take on the character and turned him into the full-blown charismatic star of what ended up becoming the DCEU’s highest-grossing installment to date. In fact, I’d argue that the best DCEU film to date is one that Snyder had absolutely nothing to do with, Shazam. Some may refer to Shazam as the closest that the DCEU has ever gotten to replicating the MCU aesthetic, because aside from some incredibly dark moments that feel like they came straight out of a horror film, it’s easily the DCEU’s most light-hearted entry to date. But as I’ve said plenty of times by now, there’s a lot more to this than just colorful visuals and a plethora of jokes, as Shazam also fully succeeds at giving its title character a proper and emotionally cathartic character arc that’s perfectly synced with all the fun superhero escapades that he partakes in. Suffice it to say, this is something that you never really got out of the DCEU films that Snyder directed, and the one character who was hurt by this the most was Superman, thus resulting in his sacrifice at the end of Batman v Superman feeling incredibly hollow. And it’s a shame, really, because Henry Cavill has very much proven himself to be an incredibly charismatic actor thanks to films like The Man from UNCLE and Mission Impossible – Fallout. Thus, given the recent news that revealed that Cavill is set to return to the franchise after quite a few years where it was rumored that he was done playing Superman, I hope that he’ll have better material to work with going forward. Because, really, it’s saying something when his best performance in the role… was in Justice League. Yes, despite all the wonky CGI to remove his mustache and the fact that it contrasted heavily with how the character was portrayed in both Man of Steel and Batman v Superman, it is still the closest that Henry Cavill has ever gotten to matching Christopher Reeve’s iconic interpretation of the character.
And so, given everything that I’ve gone through in today’s post, I must admit that the announcement that Zack Snyder’s Justice League will finally see the light of day is one that has left me with mixed feelings overall, and as you might have guessed, this largely has to do with the whole #ReleasetheSnyderCut movement. Now before I continue, let me just point out that I’m well aware that what I’m about to discuss doesn’t represent the entirety of those who were involved in the campaign for the release of Snyder’s version of the film. I know that a lot of people who participated in it simply did so because they wanted to see this version of the film released publicly, especially given all the tragic circumstances that led to Snyder’s departure from the production. On that note, quite arguably the best result to come from this campaign was that over $150,000 was raised for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Unfortunately, as has usually been the case these past few years with incidents that are attributed to internet fandom, the more vocal and incredibly toxic members of the community have ultimately been the ones who have ended up dominating the discussion. Before the announcement that the film was finally going to get released, they attacked anyone who dared to suggest that the idea of releasing Snyder’s version of the film seemed impossible at the time given the status that it was in when he left the production. Many of them have also harassed Warner Bros. employees to the point where the former President of DC Entertainment, Diane Nelson, had to delete her Twitter account. But perhaps the biggest thing to note about this entire movement was how utterly persistent it was at times to the point where that hashtag was being pushed even when talking about things that had nothing to do with Justice League. Thus, as much as some will say that folks like this only represent a small part of the community, I do think that we’re at a point now where crap like this needs to be better addressed. Because at the end of the day, even the actions of a select number of ‘fans’ (a term that, as you might have guessed, I use very loosely here) has the potential to make us all look bad simply by association.
And as I’ve said plenty of times over the past few years, the hardcore faction of the DCEU fandom has become one of the most toxic internet groups in recent memory. If you were to ask me why, I’d say that it’s largely because of how they are fully devoted to what Zack Snyder had envisioned for the franchise. Thus, when anyone dares to come along and suggest that his DCEU films were far from perfect, his fans will come out of the woodwork, get incredibly infuriated about it, and try to pass off the utterly bogus conspiracy that critics of Snyder’s films were paid off by Disney and Marvel to make the MCU look better by comparison. Heck, even when the DC Extended Universe had a genuine hit on its hands, these folks still somehow managed to find something to be upset about. When Wonder Woman became the DCEU’s first critically acclaimed hit, a lot of Snyder fans tried to pin it all on him since he had a story credit instead of, you know, director Patty Jenkins. When Aquaman came out, the hardcore DCEU fandom attacked anyone who had predicted that the film wasn’t going to be a box-office hit and, as you might have guessed, lashed out at anyone who gave it a negative review. And don’t even get me started on how furious they were when Birds of Prey came out earlier this year rather than the films that they wanted like a sequel to Man of Steel or the Snyder Cut. But, of course, the biggest stunt that they’ve pulled (apart from their negative influence on the whole #ReleasetheSnyderCut situation, of course…) was when they tried to shut down Rotten Tomatoes in 2016 after Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad were both savaged by critics. Simply put, these folks haven’t responded well to the idea that the DC Extended Universe has worked a lot better when it isn’t going with the grim aesthetic that Snyder had established during the franchise’s early days.
But now this brings us to what has easily been the most concerning aspect of the announcement for Zack Snyder’s Justice League… the fact that it could potentially pave the way for more instances in the future where overly entitled fans aggressively demand changes to films when they don’t turn out exactly the way they wanted. In fact, I’d argue that, when it comes to films that have left some sort of impact on the film industry, Justice League has been one of the most prevalent examples in recent memory of a film that has left a negative impact because of how it has emboldened certain online crowds to endlessly vent about what could have been. Nowadays, whenever a deleted scene for a film is released, some folks will act like they were ‘robbed’ of a sequence that, 9 times out of 10, was cut for a legitimate reason (e.g. the deleted scene in Avengers: Endgame where the Avengers all take a knee to mourn Tony Stark right after he dies). And it’s all thanks to the film that, until Snyder’s version comes out next year, boasted one of the vastest and eclectic collections of sequences that were ultimately left on the cutting room floor. Sure enough, there have already been quite a few noteworthy examples recently of fans demanding alternate cuts. Staying in the DCEU for a moment, some have been pushing for the version of Suicide Squad that director David Ayer had originally developed before it was heavily compromised by studio interference. A few weeks after Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker came out, rumors started floating around that director J.J. Abrams was forced to make some critical changes to the film in the wake of the polarizing reactions to The Last Jedi, resulting in the #ReleasetheJJCut hashtag becoming a thing. And finally, literally just a few days after I started writing this post, the next big fan campaign emerged when Star Wars fans started to push for director George Lucas’ original 4-hour cut of Episode III – Revenge of the Sith.
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| The toxic attitudes of modern film fan culture were directly parodied in 'Batman's Back Man', the fifth episode of the second season of the hit DC Universe animated series 'Harley Quinn' |
Simply put, I wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t the last
time that we’ll be seeing fans getting this worked up over a film’s mythical
alternate cut. And so, in conclusion, I will reiterate what I’ve said before in
that when it comes to the announcement that Zack Snyder’s Justice League will
finally get released, I am happy for Zack Snyder… and Zack Snyder only (and, by
extension, everyone who had worked on the film before the reshoots). Despite
my current feelings towards his DCEU films, I’m glad that he was able to find
closure on a project that he never got the chance to finish. And yet, I simply
can’t say the same for the DCEU fandom because as much as I know that many people
who participated in this movement did so out of genuine appreciation for Snyder’s
work, said movement was tainted by some utterly toxic jackasses who haven’t
been able to fathom the possibility that his takes on these classic characters were
inherently flawed. Plus, to be perfectly blunt, folks… I just got so damn tired
of hearing about this film all the frigging time for the past two and a half
years, especially whenever it threatened to overshadow the instances where the
DCEU managed to achieve some genuine success. Now, to be clear, this doesn’t
mean that I was ever against the notion of its release. Once it debuts on HBO
Max next year, I assure you that I’ll watch it and will then give you a proper review/discussion
post on it. However, this doesn’t excuse the fact that everything that surrounded
its release is ultimately yet another example of the increasing sense of entitlement
that is thoroughly plaguing modern fandom. We now live in an era where, for
some inexplicable reason, some believe that the best way to express their
disappointment over a film or TV show is to vehemently lash out at the
filmmakers and studios who worked on them as if the fact that they didn’t live
up to their oddly specific set of expectations is the equivalent of some kind
of criminal offense. And yet, this is exactly the kind of deplorable behavior
that I’m thoroughly against as a film critic because I believe that it’s a
blatant sign of disrespect coming from people who think that they know better than
those who work in the industry even though incidents like this very much prove otherwise.
That concludes this extensive discussion on the history behind Zack Snyder’s version of Justice League. Since this single post ultimately proved to be nearly as long as either of the lengthy write-ups that I did for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and Avengers: Endgame in my Top 12 Films of 2019 list from a few months back, I’d like to thank all of you for sticking it out with me when it comes to this incredibly daunting beast of an editorial.
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