The Zack Snyder cut of Justice League feels destined to be one of superhero movies great ‘what ifs.’ This three-hour rough version was screened for execs in the spring and while no one knows exactly what they thought of it, the fact that Joss Whedon was brought in at the last minute to reshoot a lot of the pic and tweak the plot suggests that they didn’t exactly love it. Then again, whatever Snyder’s version looked like, it has to be better than the leaden rubbish that eventually thumped into cinemas, right?
Since the film’s release, we’ve had a steady trickle of leaks that have given us a decent idea of what Whedon left on the cutting room floor and now, courtesy of an Instagram post by cast member Thomas Billings, we have another. It doesn’t tell us much, unfortunately, but it appears that one of the deleted scenes would have had Atlantean warriors going to toe-to-toe with Steppenwolf’s Parademons:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BbxHBjfArXV/
One of the few highlights in the final cut was the excellent Amazon battle scene, so it’s frustrating to know that there could have been an Atlantean equivalent as these warriors do battle on the surface while the big bad heads to the depths to tangle with Mera and Aquaman.
I’m not going to say that Zack Snyder’s cut is a great lost classic of cinema. After all, he had complete control of Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and look how that turned out. But still, I respect Snyder for at least having an aesthetic and vision, something sorely lacking in the focus-grouped-to-death cut of the film that WB and Whedon Frankensteined together.
Right now, it looks as if Justice League will either be an outright flop or merely a disappointment. If it begins to completely sink without a trace at the box office, I hope they try and salvage things with an extended Director’s Cut on DVD/Blu-ray. If only for curiosity’s sake.
