2017’s Justice League left us with a number of burning questions, the majority of which probably weren’t the kind that Warner Bros. intended. For one thing, many DC enthusiasts are more interested these days in the movie we didn’t get, rather than the one we did, with calls for the fabled ‘Snyder cut’ continuing to ring throughout the four corners of the web to this very day.
Not only that, but the matter of what exactly went down behind the scenes of this troubled production remains a source of continuing mystery. Thanks to Clay Enos though, we’re now just a little bit closer to understanding Justice League’s rocky journey to theaters. And that’s because the photographer recently appeared on the Farooqi Bros podcast and opened up a bit about what happened.
Having worked on Justice League along with several other DCEU films, Enos certainly knows a lot more about the franchise than the average person and when asked if Zack’s cut will ever be released, he admitted that it’s unlikely to happen due to the logistics of it all.
“Just the logistics of that are really difficult. What is it? Is it a different theatrical release? What does that mean for royalty checks for the two hundred actors that participated in it. It is just a complete mess on so many fronts.”
That being said, he did explain that if there’s enough money to be made from releasing it, Warner Bros. may be persuaded.
“My observation is that this business makes anything like that incredibly unlikely and complicated. That said, if there’s a sufficient box office allure they’ll figure it out. There’s probably something pretty close to ready out there. Throw another twenty, thirty million in and you could maybe see hundreds come from it… It’s a hard one. There’s massive financial consequences to doing something like that.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Enos claimed that what WB did to Snyder and his film was a “terrible wrong,” saying the following:
“This is going to go down in film history as some sort of terrible wrong that can be righted. But what culture has to emerge for that to happen is something we need to work towards. We need to prioritize this sort of auteur filmmaker world… All of us need to support films that have the auteurs mark on them. Let’s gradually work towards where the bottom line and the box office isn’t the headline.”
“Support films that hold those same ideals. Imagine if the market place that just want to see films that the directors work so hard to create and the distribution systems honor that vision. If the world opens up and becomes that, AT&T is going to wake up one day and be like ‘you know we have one of those’.”
Finally, the photographer blasted the studio, saying that they took Justice League away from Snyder and completely butchered it.
“It’s somewhat uncomfortable because a friend of mine’s film got butchered. Obviously, the DCEU is going in a different direction.”
Of course, there’s often more than one narrative that can be applied to a situation like this, but regardless, it’s been clear for a while now that Justice League bombing with both critics and audiences alike has resulted in many changes being made behind the scenes over at WB and DC. Chief amongst them being that now, they’re “far less focused on a shared universe” for the franchise, and seeing how successful Aquaman was at the box office when it opened last year, the change in approach might be for the best.
