Last week, HBO Max premiered Zack Snyder’s Justice League on its platform after years of fans asking to see it. I was one of the fans who viewed Snyder’s 4 hour cut, and honestly, I enjoyed it. It may not have been amazing, but it was a far superior improvement over the botched version given to us in its theatrical version by Joss Whedon and the executives at Warner.
Despite I’m beating a dead horse here, the version that was given to the fans in 2017 contained forced humor, awkward moments from the main cast of characters, and (most notoriously) a Superman with a weird CGI upper lip (due to Henry Cavill not being able to shave it as he was in middle of production with another feature during the Whedon re-shoots). It didn’t help that any development of the newly introduced characters at the time (Aquaman, Flash, and Cyborg) was cut, and even backstory and further intent for the villain for the film, Steppenwolf, was cut. The result made the characters seem one dimensional.
The Snyder Cut gives us more backstory for the characters, especially for Cyborg (who suffered the most with his backstory taken out in the theatrical cut). We even get introduced to several other DC characters, including Darkseid (who would’ve serve as the major antagonist in the DCEU, like Thanos in the MCU). But, the biggest detail out of anything within the Snyder Cut is the set ups for what was suppose to be the followup films within the DCEU.
As Snyder was working on Justice League, several other films were announced including Justice League 2 & 3 (both directed by Snyder), a solo Batman film that would've had Ben Affleck at the helm, different solo films based around Deathstroke, Cyborg, the Atom, and the Green Lantern Corp, a sequel to Man of Steel, and a Wonder Woman sequel that would've been different from Wonder Woman 1984. I was excited for several of these projects, but finding out that the drastic changes Warner and Whedon did to Justice League put these potential films into the NOT TO BE PRODUCED bin at Warner Bros.
However, after the release of the Snyder Cut (as well as the Black and White version, entitled Justice is Grey, this week), there is currently a movement to #RestoretheSnyderVerse in hopes to see what the DCEU could've been (mostly to see the Justice League sequels that Snyder hoped to make). Despite Warner Bros comments on how they are done with Zach Snyder's vision of the DCEU, HBO Max may be the ones who may be for finishing Snyder's Justice League saga.