At long last, DC defenders offer a reasonable explanation for the collapse of the SnyderVerse

Zack Snyder‘s DC epic appears destined to end on a cliffhanger. The epilogue of HBO Max’s Justice League saw a post-apocalyptic version of the team squaring off against a corrupted Superman, with the present-day Bruce Wayne gathering new heroes like Martian Manhunter to the cause.

Despite the passionate efforts of Snyder’s sizeable fanbase, it seems neither the controversial director nor Warner Bros. have any desire to continue this story, so it’ll go down in cinematic history as a huge what if. Now, DC_Cinematic has begun to sift through the ashes, and may have pinpointed where it all went wrong:

The consensus is that DC was blindsided by the success of the MCU’s Phase One, and were desperate to make up the lost ground. Whereas Marvel Studios slowly built up to 2012’s The Avengers over four years and five movies, DC tried to speedrun the process. Rather than give each Justice League member their own film, they briefly teased them in Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice and then introduced them in Justice League.

Though some of the blame has to lie at Snyder’s feet for being the architect of the plan, it’s arguable that his hand was forced as this was the only pitch Warner Bros. would accept. That said, even the most ardent Snyder fan has to admit that the sequence in Batman vs Superman where Bruce Wayne sits at the Batcomputer and watches teaser trailers for the other Justice League members is a rather clumsy way of filling out the DC universe.

Even so, it’s difficult to argue that Warner Bros. executives’ interference in the franchise wasn’t a major contributing factor. Batman vs Superman‘s theatrical cut had a lot of material sliced out at the last minute to fit in more screenings per day, with Snyder’s eventual Ultimate Edition a far better watch.

And then there’s Justice League, with Warner Bros. making the disastrous decision to replace Snyder with Joss Whedon midway through production. We’ll never know if Snyder’s original vision would have been a hit (it would have been a very different movie from 2021’s four-hour epic, that’s for sure) but it’d be difficult to end up worse than what Whedon turned in.

Perhaps it’s best for all concerned that the DCU is moving in a fresh direction, and that Snyder gets to keep doing his own thing at Netflix free from studio interference.

That being said, we’ll always wonder how Snyder’s DC epic would have ended. Maybe one day we’ll get a comic book or animated movie finally wrapping things up.