NS: DC FanDome - Zack Snyder's Justice League!

[deh_tommy]

Zack Snyder has unveiled a new trailer for his upcoming Justice League miniseries on HBO Max, featuring previously unseen footage and characters cut from the theatrical release.

Watch on YouTube

Zack Snyder's Justice League will be broken up into around four episodes at an hour each, and (I think) can also be viewed as one long movie. Plans are currently underway for international distribution.

Comments

[lucean]

Pretty excited by the teaser, especially considering the larger scope it represents. Also some of those Flash scenes just seem so much more thrilling than what we got in the movie.

Here's the thing though, it's impossible to say how well this will all work out and I write that as someone who loved both MoS and BvS. But I just want to feel like it tried to massive and ambitious, because was to me the gardinal sin of the Justicle League movie. It genuinely felt like watching someone doing the bare minimum while gushing how Superman is the bestest.

[zachbeacon]

Did Wonder Woman really just smile in a Zack Snyder movie? Is that allowed?

[deh_tommy]

She smiled all throughout Batman v. Superman, so that’s not too surprising.

[zachbeacon]

After Watchmen, Man of Steel*, and Sucker Punch, I decided not to subject myself to his movies anymore.

If you were looking forward to the Snyder Cut then I hope it's everything you want it to be but I doubt a movie by a director whose work I don't like will be improved for me by making it longer.

*I guess I remember Lois smiling at the end of that one. Is it just the men that aren't allowed to show joy?

[deh_tommy]

Clark and Lex Luthor smiled quite a bit, too.

[mazway_75]

That was one of the best bits, she takes a nasty hit from Doomsday and just grins like she's more alive than in decades.

[jmacq1]

Meh.

I mean, some of the new footage looks intriguing and it certainly looks more ambitious than what we got, but I suspect the ultimate takeaway from this will be that it's a bona-fide miracle Joss Whedon managed to cut together a semi-coherent film from it.

[cyberghostface]

I'd be surprised if that was at all the general consensus. Everyone involved with the original film is standing by Zack on this.

[owlbrigade1]

Be amazing if it wasn't good. Snyder has got the full benefit of hindsight for his remake, since the entire first movie is basically a large scale focus group screening, so he will know exactly what did and did not work, plus a forty or so million buff in the budget for reshoots and all new FX works, plus extended running time, and being able to plan it as a miniseries in instalments instead of having to cram it all into one movie without giving the audience time to breathe. It better be good, given all that. It better be absolute gold standard for television events with all those benefits.

[cyberghostface]

It’s not going to be a complete do over of what everyone wants.

[jmacq1]

It won't be.

Agree 100%

[steverodgers5]

Well said. You just summed up my thoughts on this exactly!

[zachbeacon]

I mean I don't even like Snyder's work but ...

A) the circumstances surrounding Snyder's departure were horrible

B) Whedon is apparently a nightmare to work with

...so I'm glad they had Snyder's back.

[jmacq1]

People paid (in part) to market a product they participated in are positive about it? You don't say?

[cyberghostface]

Are you trying to say Ray Fisher was paid to say that Joss Whedon was toxic and abusive and Geoff Johns was threatening him over the direction of the film after Snyder was canned? Of that the cast was paid to ask for a director’s cut long before WB agreed to do it? Seriously?

[palgrave_goldenrod]

To be entirely fair, so far Ray Fisher is the only person who's made any public allegations of toxic and abusive behaviour, and those allegations lack any kind of specific detail. As for the others, abuse or not, I don't think they necessarily need to be bribed to believe the that the director they were happier working with might have made the better movie, but that doesn't necessarily make it so. Plus, yes, they have in part been paid to say nice things about the project, they're still connected to it through these circumstances, and they have an interest in making sure people watch the new version, they're not exactly pure unbiased witnesses as to its potential overall quality.

[jmacq1]

Have the rest of the actors backed him up on the abuse allegations?

On the flipside, Ray Fisher has also praised Whedon for the work he did in the past. So either way at some point Ray Fisher has inarguably lied while being paid to promote a product. Which is the point.

And you don't actually know when WB decided to do it. Me? I suspect right before the actors involved all "suddenly decided" to go full-bore on a convenient viral marketing campaign, complete with pre-packaged hashtag. Especially considering that finishing up post-production FX work on effectively a second movie's worth of footage for the film (to say nothing of what they may have altered of what was already used), would lead to a timeline that would lead to a release of...right about now from the time that campaign started. Huh...imagine that. They sure as heck were working on it long before they announced it was coming.

[cyberghostface]

"And you don't actually know when WB decided to do it. Me? I suspect right before the actors involved all "suddenly decided" to go full-bore on a convenient viral marketing campaign, complete with pre-packaged hashtag."

You suspect the most cynical interpretation because for some reason the idea that the actors actually support Snyder is too ridiculous because it doesn't coincide with your own personal bias against the director (and I haven't seen any of his films since Watchmen if you want to know where I stand on his films). Never mind that the actors didn't just magically start supporting it around the time you say. Jason Momoa was talking about it as far back as 2018.

The actors only knew months before the announcement that this was happening. Snyder was approached on the second anniversary of the film about it. It didn't really start happening with the other producers until February of this year. And it only happened because of the fans asking for it for years.

As for Whedon its telling no one has been supporting him over this. No one has come to his aid. I don't see why Ray Fisher would risk his career over false allegations in the first place.

[janegray]

On the flipside, Ray Fisher has also praised Whedon for the work he did in the past. So either way at some point Ray Fisher has inarguably lied while being paid to promote a product.

Inarguably?

Whether you believe Fisher or not, it's really simple to argue that he used to enjoy Whedon's work, then started working with him and hated the conditions so much that he started hating Whedon and consequently Whedon's works.

Not sure why you think lies are the only explanation.

[jmacq1]

I could have phrased it better, but I am specifically referring to Ray Fisher praising Joss Whedon for the work he did (on the Justice League Movie) in the past.

So...yeah...inarguably. I'm referring to statements he made during the press junkets for the theatrical release of Justice League.

[bravest_spinja]

I 100% believe Snyder is like, a nicer guy than Whedon--and that on the set the way he explained his vision to the actors sounded very cool and was inspiring and it was overall just a better experience. But I'm sure as craftwork it was just an arbitrary mess.

By contrast, I think Whedon, who I think has become more and more of a bitter crank over the years, came in feeling like an outsider, and threw his weight around to establish his authority Captain Jellico style, but probably did have a tighter, more efficient sense of storytelling.

If you look at interviews from Ian McKellen, he says the way X-Men 2's nightmare of a production went (largely based on Singer's ghastly lack of professionalism), he had little faith in the movie. However, Brett Ratner was much better for morale. So on-set experiences don't always translate into watchable product.( Of course, Singer eventually reached that point where his assets got outpaced by his liabilities, and Ratner's own proclivities brought him down, but late 00's, trust me, this is a very good analogy.)

[zachbeacon]

100% this. Its disappointing to find out that most of my favorite directors are assholes but apparently they are.

Granted so are a lot of my least favorite directors.

Its almost as if a job that requires you to micromanage every aspect of filming attracts control freaks.

As with many bad work situations, morale can be slightly improved when management are effective leaders but that apparently doesn't always go hand in hand with good storytelling.

[cyberghostface]

Happy for Zack and the fans that the director's cut is coming out.

[thanekos]

Hail Darkseid, the graphics card demo render.

[mazway_75]

My issue with this is what it represents: That now select fanboys think if they whine long enough, they can get something that appeals to them.

It's why they think HBO really will reshoot the last season of Game of Thrones. That Disney will "retcon" the Star Wars sequels and such. Giving in and letting them get their own way can cause a lot of problems when filmmakers mistake the vocal minority for the vast majority (see how the issues of Rise of Skywalker were because they felt they had to "correct" the "Last Jedi ruined the franchise" sect).

Sure, it looks better than the first version but it's also setting a tough precedent.

[cyberghostface]

There will always be entitled fans regardless. People would want a redo of Game of Thrones whether or not this got made.

[mazway_75]

Tue but now they have fuel. A year ago, the petition to remake the last season was laughable, today you can just imagine some HBO exec thinking "you know, imagine how much attention we'd get if we spent another $100 million to redo it in line with the final book...."

[janegray]

I just don't get why you think it was laughable.

The damage that S8 did to the franchise cost them way more than 100 millions. It caused ratings and interest in merchandise and spin-offs of their richest property to plummet overnight. Economically speaking (which is the only language execs understand), it was a catastrophe. Why wouldn't they want to invest in a fix?

And there is precedent for redoing something in order to follow the original canon more closely. Anime does it all the time. Plus, Terminator has three separate continuities, and that pales compared to Batman and Spider-Man movies (how many times have we seen the Waynes and uncle Ben die?).

I can understand the argument that you don't want to encourage the worst aspects of Fandom, the people who bully and harass cast and crew to demand being catered to.

But I'm genuinely confused as to why you find it laughable that execs might consider a remake that has precedents and would make them a ton of money.

[bravest_spinja]

Yeah, I mean, I don't know how many times we've had "Sequels that ignore previous installments" in movies at this point, but like, it's hardly new to backtrack in light of fan backlash. Dallas anyone? Hell, as much as geeks are categorized as a mob who can't get over it, comic strip readers, in the mainstream, have been catered to several times throughout history, to the point they were able to overturn One More Day in their own corner of the universe.

Hell, this wouldn't even be the first director's-cut-with-the-original-director that featured Superman! Remember the Donner Cut? And like, Superman II was a well-liked, successful movie.

I suppose the budget is unprecedented, but streaming has always been about that startup money pit energy, and it'll probably put food on tables when a large segment of the industry is shut down. I'd rather this than seeing real movies getting sent to the high school pregnancy that is Streaming.

(That said, I don't think we'll see GoT re-shot or anything. A big reason D&D were over it/took so many shortcuts is that show was a very logistically complicated production--try getting the band back together now that everyone's contracts is probably done.) The Stark Kids aren't getting younger, and I've heard some sad rumors about Emilia Clarke's health.) And I'm pretty sure Martin is going to grouse about people getting sick of endings before he can even do it himself.)

[janegray]

Oh, if any reboot/Director's cut ever happens, it's most definitely going to be after the final book is out, and it's going to follow the book closely. That way they get to market it as the "real" ending. Attempting to make their own ending again would be seen as intensely suspicious.

By then the cast would be too old though. So my prediction is that it will either be an animated movie (if the success of Castlevania, Spiderverse, and the upcoming wave of R-rated action cartoons manages to change the perception that cartoons are for kids), so they can have those actors as voice actors. Or it's going to be a live action reboot with new actors.

[mazway_75]

That was really my point, the logistics are nuts too.

I mean, a key thing of these nuts going "retcon the Star Wars sequels" is they keep mentioning ideas for Leia and ignore the tiny issue of Carrie Fisher no longer around....

[deh_tommy]

I guess, but I think more than anything this is being done because the people who made the film actually wanted a Snyder Cuf just as much as everyone else (or at least they give that impression).

[zachbeacon]

That was my immediate reaction too but honestly, in this age of constant reboots, that sort of reaction is inevitable.

How many Terminator continuities are we on now?

[janegray]

Sometimes things objectively suck, and changing them is for the better. There is no such thing as the sacredness of untouchable art, even Michelangelo made changes to the Cappella Sistina according to feedback.

I would be 1000000% in favour of releasing a version of HIMYM that changes the final minutes of the final episode.