Justice League really could have done with spending a little more time in the oven.
That’s not baseless speculation or an inflammatory notion from left-field; when Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon’s DC blockbuster opened to mixed reviews on November 17th, it soon became clear that Justice League, undoubtedly Warner’s biggest movie yet, was rushed across the finish line.
Lackluster CGI and an uninspired script were just some of the criticisms leveled against Snyder’s starry epic, so it’s small wonder why fans are now petitioning Warner Bros. to release a director’s cut on home video. But imagine if the Powers That Be surrendered that November 17th launch date and, by effect, allowed Justice League to spend more time in post. It’s this line of thinking that evokes Shigeru Miyamoto’s famous quote about video game production: “A delayed game is eventually good. A bad game is bad forever.”
That’s not to say that Justice League is openly bad; rather, Warner’s flagship will be remembered as a colossal misfire. So what gives? Why didn’t the company’s executives reshuffle the DCEU release slate and push Justice League into 2018? Turns out corporate greed may be to blame.
Sources close to The Wrap are alleging that CEO Kevin Tsujihara and President Toby Emmerich “wanted to preserve their bonuses” from the lucrative deal between Time Warner and AT&T, and feared that if they pushed the movie, their bonuses “would have been pushed to the following year and they might not still be at the studio.”
It’s a damning allegation from top to bottom, but it’s not unlike the rumors previously uncovered by Splash Report earlier in the year, when it was revealed that Justice League was in the process of being dramatically overhauled. Alas, that fabled delay was quietly pushed aside so that Warner Bros. kept hold of the November 17th release date, and we can only hope that the company’s bigwigs take heed of JL‘s $100 million write-down.