Thanks to Zack Snyder himself, we’re being flooded with intriguing trivia pertaining to his time working on Justice League. In addition to revealing how Darkseid and Lois Lane factored heavily into his grand scheme, we’re now learning that his original vision was likely much darker than the fabled Snyder cut his fans have been demanding from Warner Bros.
While speaking at a recent screening of Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, Snyder dropped the following bombshell, as transcribed by Screen Rant’s Stephen M. Colbert and posted to his own Twitter page:
“When this movie came out, understand that Chris Terrio and I had finished the script to Justice League before BvS came out. Some people didn’t like the movie. A vocal minority. So they said ‘there’s a lot of stuff we don’t want you to do’ so we did a rewrite from that script.
“So the original Justice League script, we didn’t even shoot. The really scary version. Because we were really nervous after the response.”
Even though I dig hearing how Snyder would’ve utilized Darkseid, I’m admittedly nervous when he talks about making a “really scary” Justice League movie. When I imagined DC’s premier superhero team fighting together for the first time on the big screen, I pictured audiences being blown away and leaving theaters with smiles on their faces – and not looking like they’d just been punched in the gut.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s actually a lot I liked about BvS, but it doesn’t hold a candle to anything assembled by Tim Burton or Christopher Nolan – or even achieve what Snyder himself did with Man of Steel. And to say that “a vocal minority” disliked the movie is wildly inaccurate because most people I’ve talked to hated it, not to mention those on social media or the negative response from critics. Without naming names, I can say that I’ve spoken to a number of comic book writers and artists at conventions, and they can’t stand how Snyder portrayed Batman and Superman.
It’s at this point that diehard fans will likely bring up how BvS raked in almost $900 million at the worldwide box office, but consider this: most of that was accrued during the first two weeks. After that, it sank like a stone – much like Batman & Robin. And if it were so beloved, then why did only a fraction of the audience turn out for Justice League, causing it to bomb? Fortunately, both Wonder Woman and Aquaman emerged from the ordeal unscathed and are enjoying tremendous success on their own.
Face it: a movie uniting Batman and Superman for the first time in live action should’ve cleared a billion easily. Heck, Batman has done it by himself more than once. Maybe it’s for the best that history unfolded this way so that WB now focuses on solo films going forward, rather than having the wrong guy rushing along a counter to what Marvel is doing.
