Zack Snyder's Justice League Theatrical Cut Was Ruined By A Simple Studio Note

It feels like it was so, so very long ago. 

James Gunn's newly rebooted superhero universe, nicknamed the DCU (for DC Universe), is set to launch on July 11, 2025, with the release of "Superman," yet another live-action feature film to star the Man of Steel. The people looking forward to "Superman" are likely uninterested in recalling the decade-long debacle that was the DCEU (that is: the DC Extended Universe), the 16-film cycle spearheaded by director Zack Snyder. The DCEU began with the release of the not-at-all-good "Man of Steel" in 2013 and chugged along until the release of the even-worse "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" in 2023. In between, there was at least one great film ("Shazam!"), one good film ("Wonder Woman"), and a lot of tiresome trash. 

The DCEU had a lot of defenders, but not enough to make it equal the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Disney's superhero film series that regularly broke box office records. The DCEU's answer to the MCU's "Avengers" (a Joss Whedon film) was Zack Snyder's "Justice League," released in 2017. That film featured Superman (Henry Cavill), Batman (Ben Affleck), Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), The Flash (Ezra Miller), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) teaming up to fight a CGI monster named Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds). Snyder had to leave the film partway through production because of a personal tragedy, and Whedon (uncredited) stepped in to direct multiple scenes and re-write the film to make it lighter and more humorous. 

The resulting film wasn't widely loved. It made $661 million on a $300 million budget (!), which is considered a disappointment as far as these things go. We shan't re-litigate the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut campaign. 

Snyder appeared on the interview show "Pizza Film School" back in 2023, and he talked about his experience making "Justice League." He noted that even if he hadn't had to leave for personal reasons, the movie was already looking shaky because Warner Bros. wanted "Justice League" to be more comedic. That, he feels, was the film's death knell. 

We need to pause to remember that Zack Snyder is a notoriously humorless director. His fantasy blockbusters tend to skew toward pseudo-philosophical portent and climactic action scenes. His characters rarely joke around, and they throw punches with stern expressions on their faces. This is a contrast to the film of the MCU, which are bright and comedic and undercut their drama with a lot of "quippy" dialogue. 

Because the MCU was so successful, Warner Bros. felt that those movies' sense of humor might have had a lot to do with that. Even though they hired a portentous director like Zack Snyder, they still told him to make "Justice League" funnier. Snyder recalls getting the studio note and feeling it was absurd. One can hear Snyder's frustration. He said:  

"I'll be honest that when the script ... what happened with 'Justice League,' is we had a very ... the original script was much darker and weirder. And then when 'Batman v Superman' came out and the studio was like, 'It's not funny enough. People want funnier movies. They want funny stuff in it,' we did go back, and ... kind of lightened the movie, overall."

Snyder's "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" was released the previous year, and it was, as was Snyder's wont, po-faced and earnest and violent. It seems that the studio mandate for "Justice League" was to make it more like "Avengers," even though "BvS" was still a hit (making over $874 million on a $325 million budget). 

When Snyder left "Justice League," Warner Bros. got their wish and hired the "Avengers" guy to do the same thing. The theatrical cut of "Justice League" was digitally brightened up in post-production, and Whedon inserted a lot of flippant jokes and lighter moments at WB's behest. The resulting film was something of a mess, with some scenes looking smoky and bleak, and others looking bright and silly. 

The rest is history. "Justice League" was considered a bomb, and many fans noticed the clash of Snyder's darkness and Whedon's lightness. For years, fans speculated what might have happened if Snyder had been able to make the film in his own way. Some assumed that Snyder actually completed his version of "Justice League," and that Whedon's tampering was 100% the result of studio notes. This isn't true, but it didn't stop the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut campaign from launching. 

In 2021, Warner Bros. finally caved to fan pressure, and gave Snyder an additional $70 million to complete "Justice League" however he wanted. He turned in a four-hour film that was released on HBO Max in the middle of Covid lockdowns, and it was ... better. The story was the same, but the storytelling was clearer. There was also an additional villain in the form of Steppenwolf's nephew, Darkseid (Ray Porter). Weirdly, both the 2017 cut and the 2021 are equally entertaining. 

Of course, Snyder still had to compromise, even with complete control. He spoke more about the original script ideas he had, and how in one drafter he concocted a love story for Lois Lane (Amy Adams) and ... well, not Superman. Snyder said:

"I would say that my cut of 'Justice League' is sort of in between ... I always preserved some of the more intense that stuff I shot anyway. Which I thought they would, in retrospect, maybe want. In the original script, Lois and Batman got together briefly. There was this whole other thing. And everyone was like 'Oh my god, you can't do that.'"

Because of the DCU, the DCEU has instantly been relegated to a footnote, an unofficial version of DC heroes that we no longer have to pay attention to. But the real ones remember. We remember how much drama and money was involved.