Justice League is currently set to go down as one of the greatest superheroic disappointments of all-time. The film was supposed to be the culmination of years of plotlines in Man of Steel, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman, properly launching the expansive and exciting DC Universe on the big screen in a spectacular manner. A famously tortured production, though, including director Zack Snyder leaving the project and being replaced by Joss Whedon, culminated in the mess that was finally squirted into cinemas late last year.
Could things have been different? A lot of DCEU fans think the answer is yes. We know for sure that some kind of cut was screened to Warner Bros. executives in the spring of 2017 and that they reacted so negatively that months of expensive reshoots to change the film’s tone were hurriedly scheduled. Since then, there’s been a fan campaign to get a home release of this fabled Snyder cut, which has resulted in an impressive new site.
Here’s their mission statement:
ForSnyderCut Web site’s mission is to share what we love about the vision we’ve seen and bring to light the vision on Justice League that we didn’t see.
The Snyder Cut would be driven by the consistency and integrity of principle photography under the same director, cinematographer, editor, and actors working from the same pre-approved script at the peak of their preparation. Our goal is to see the time, care, deliberation, preparation, artistry, and intentions that went into principle photography, principle performances, polished production, and the prior screenplay composed out of a place of passion, joy, excitement, and cooperation; compared to the hurried and desperate efforts rushed out under duress.
However well-intentioned the latter, we believe the talent and artistry of the filmmakers, actors, visual effects artists, etc. will be better represented in the first case.
I’ve got to hand it to whoever designed this, because it’s a real cut above most fan campaign websites. Tucked away within its pages is a wealth of information outlining why Zack Snyder’s cut deserves to be seen, explaining that he truly understands what makes DC’s superheroes tick and, above all else, a recognition that a cohesive artistic vision is at the core of good cinema.
Given how crushingly disappointed I (and many other fans) were with Justice League, I desperately hope campaigns like this make Warner Bros. sit up and take note. While it might be tempting to put the whole mess behind them and pretend it didn’t happen, they’d win back a whole lot of fan kudos if they bowed to demands and let us see for ourselves whether Snyder’s cut of the film is the disaster they thought it was.