Ava DuVernay Hints New Gods Was Canceled Because Of The Snyder Cut

Back in April, two more DCEU projects were consigned to the scrapheap when Ava DuVernay’s New Gods and Aquaman spinoff The Trench were canceled, although we’ve since found out that the latter was intended to be a solo movie for Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s Black Manta.

New Gods had been in development since March 2018 but never seemed to gain much forward momentum, and there were theories circulating online that the film may have been scrapped because it was set to feature Darkseid as a major player, and he of course finally made his franchise debut in Zack Snyder’s Justice League.

Warner Bros. have made it clear they want to move away from the SnyderVerse mythos, and another high-profile outing for Darskseid works in opposition to that notion, so it wasn’t the craziest bout of speculation we’d ever heard. In a new interview with Radio Andy, it sounds as though the filmmaker may have confirmed the rumors herself.

“I loved New Gods, which is the project that got axed. The studio decided that they did not want to pursue a certain part of that comic world, based on some things that were going on with another film. So before I was even able to complete my script with Tom King, they axed it.”

That would appear to make it clear that the Snyder Cut was indeed the catalyst for New Gods being discarded from development, hammering home WB’s repeated desire to draw a definitive line under HBO Max’s Justice League as the end of that particular era of storytelling. It’s a shame for DuVernay and the fans, who were equally excited about seeing the characters brought into live-action.