Remember when Warner Bros.’ plans for the DCEU were to distinguish themselves from the MCU by being a director-led enterprise in which cinematic visionaries would have the flexibility to realize the stories they wanted to tell in the way that they wanted? That didn’t last long, did it?
Ever since Zack Snyder got the boot from Justice League after the studio got cold feet due to the frosty reception that greeted Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, we’ve been not only wondering what the Snyder cut would have been like, but what his overarching plan for the DCEU was, too. Now, thanks to perpetual Zack Snyder news story generator Vero, we have an inkling.
Apparently, the director had planned a five-film arc beginning with Man of Steel that would have told a self-contained story, most likely with Darkseid as the big bad. This would have theoretically gone across the aforementioned 2013 film, Batman V Superman, Justice League Part 1, Justice League Part 2 and an unnamed finale. We’ve heard whispers of this before and earlier on Vero, Snyder confirmed it.
This actually does sound quite different from the MCU narrative style, in which individual heroes get a film containing small elements that combine in a team-up blockbuster every 3 or 4 years. Snyder’s aim is something more like Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, in which each movie has a satisfying narrative but is also a chapter in an ongoing story that has a definite ending.
Honestly, a big screen Crisis film about Darkseid’s invasion of Earth, where Steppenwolf’s merely an advance party sounds so awesome and I’m sad we’re never going to see it. Darkseid is and always has been a cooler villain than Thanos, and it’d have been wild to see how far Zack would have taken the Earth under Apokalyptian rule.
Oh well, fingers crossed we’ll at least see the Snyder cut of Justice League one day.