If you followed Justice League‘s production from start to finish, then you no doubt remember how it’d originally been planned as a two-part epic with Zack Snyder in the director’s chair. But after Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice didn’t meet the studio’s expectations, Warner Bros. instead went in a different direction and eventually brought in Joss Whedon to reshoot most of the movie.
Although I can understand some of the decisions from a business perspective, I’ll probably never get past how Darkseid was an unfortunate casualty of trimming the story down to a single film. Granted, it did make sense to focus on Steppenwolf and not create any anticipation for the true Lord of Apokolips in a followup that was no longer on the docket, but on the other hand, we ended up with a flick in which the chief antagonist was a subordinate. In other words, it’d be like making a Batman movie with Ubu as the main villain.
Once again offering a glimpse into what could have been is Snyder himself via – what else? – Vero, which we assume to be his social media platform of choice. This time, he responded to a fan who was wondering what DC’s premier superhero team was looking at in the behind-the-scenes shot found below, confirming it’s from the end of the movie – and that they’re looking into a boom tube.
Of course, this allows our minds to ponder the myriad of possibilities, as one would think we could’ve seen a teaser of the hellish landscape that is Apokolips. Furthermore, it wouldn’t be crazy to assume Darkseid would be briefly glimpsed, thus making us salivate for what was intended to arrive in 2019.
Fortunately, though, some concept art has been circulating of late, showing us how a younger Darkseid would’ve appeared. My gut says this was probably from flashback sequences, but I guess this is just one more thing from Justice League that’ll forever remain trapped in the annals of film trivia history.