There are many, MANY people who question whether there is a true “need” for The Snyder Cut to be released. Zack Snyder’s Justice League has been a fan-motivated event that started after Warner Bros hired Joss Whedon to take over for Snyder after he left the project after the loss of his daughter Autumn as well as Warner Bros continually interfering with his vision for what the film could and should be. The result as many people know was the 2017 “patchwork film” that barely made a profit, had “mustache-gate” and eventually spawned a battle between Warner Bros and Cyborg actor Ray Fisher over what Whedon did on set. And if you want more proof as to why The Snyder Cut needs to exist, you can ask Christopher Nolan.
Vanity Fair did a massive piece on The Snyder Cut and one of the key details was that of why Zack Snyder never watched the “theatrical cut” of Justice League. Apparently, his wife Deborah and family friend Christopher Nolan went to watch the movie in his stead to see what it was like after all the reshoots.
“It was just…. it’s a weird experience,” Deborah told Vanity Fair about viewing the movie. As a producer on the project, she agreed to watch it with Nolan, who was still similarly credited as an executive producer. However, neither had any creative input on the finished film.
Deborah continued, “I don’t know how many people have that experience. You’ve worked on something for a long time, and then you leave, and then you see what happened to it.”
And as Zack noted to Vanity Fair, the two had a very clear prerogative after watching the film.
Said Zack, “They came and they just said, ‘You can never see that movie.’”
His wife added, “Because I knew it would break his heart.”
The Snyders further noted that despite earlier reports that Whedon came in to take over “at Zack’s request”, the truth was that he brought Whedon in to write a scene or two with him, but when they were grieving over the death of their daughter Autumn, he was already tasked by Warner Bros to go and direct scenes in his stead, leading to Snyder bowing out:
“We just lost the will to fight that fight in a lot of ways,” Zack said. “All of us, the whole family, we’re just so broken by [losing Autumn] that having those conversations in the middle of it really became… I was like, ‘Really?’ Frankly I think we did the right thing because I think it would’ve been either incredibly belligerent or we just rolled over.”
And if you STILL think that what Warner Bros did was the “right call” in terms of changing Zack’s vision and bringing on board to finish it, here is what one Warner Bros exec had to say on that:
“When we got to see what Joss actually did, it was stupefying,” an unnamed Warner Bros. executive told Vanity Fair. “The robber on the rooftop—so goofy and awful. The Russian family—so useless and pointless. Everyone knew it. It was so awkward because nobody wanted to admit what a piece of sh– it was.”
The fans were happy to admit it though and that’s why The Snyder Cut is coming to HBO Max with Zack’s full vision for the film intact. It arrives on March 18th.
