Zack Snyder swung for the fences when he was finally allowed to finish his version of Justice League. What arrived on HBO Max in 2021 wasn’t just the version of the movie he wanted to release in theaters, but a gargantuan four-hour epic complete with new footage shot at his home during the height of COVID.
One big addition was the Knightmare sequence that closes out the movie. First shown in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, this is the post-apocalyptic future that Darkseid wants for Earth, complete with a tyrannical corrupted Superman.
Here, Batman has assembled an unlikely Justice League, consisting of himself, Flash, Cyborg, Mera, Deathstroke and, in an unexpected twist, the Joker and now fans have zeroed in on one of the Clown Prince of Crime’s lines:
This really does feel like something the Mark Hamill Joker would say to tease Batman, so we’re on board. Sadly, the chances of the Knightmare future ever being resolved on the big screen are close to zero. Warner Bros. is now heading towards a bright James Gunn future, while Snyder gets to realize his space fantasy dreams in Rebel Moon over on Netflix.
Even so, we’d love to see Snyder’s story get some kind of ending. Now that the old DCEU is being put out of its misery, perhaps a limited comic book series showing how things would pan out for this world would work. Then again, after all that he’s been through, we suspect DC superheroes are the last thing Snyder wants to get involved with again.