Long before Zack Snyder was replaced as Justice League's director, we'd heard rumblings about issues behind the scenes. The negative critical reaction to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (along with a record-breaking weekend-to-weekend box office drop) prompted Warner Bros. to change course with David Ayer's Suicide Squad, reshaping it in pre-production to be much lighter in tone.
During a recent conversation with the Russo Brothers as part of their Pizza Film School podcast, Snyder admitted that Warner Bros. similarly tried to push him into lightening Justice League's tone by adding more humour.
"The script for Justice League did evolve out of that," the filmmaker said of the notes he received from studio higher-ups. "I'll be honest, the script, what happened with 'Justice League,' because we had a very...the original script was much darker and weirder, and then 'Batman Vs. 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 did a...lightened the movie overall. And I would say my cut of ‘Justice League’ is a sort of in-between," Snyder continued. "We had done the changes for the studio and I’ll be frank, Chris [Terrio] and I are not the funniest guys in the world, we’re not like awesome joke writers...I’m just 100% honest about that [Laughs]."
"We had Ezra and he’s pretty funny, that was kind of his role, to be the Flash, and be young, and be a little irreverent and in awe of Batman and Superman. And he did a great job, and that part was great."
The odds were stacked against Snyder from the start, and it appears we'll never get to see his true vision for the franchise. We'd like to think DC Studios will capitalise on the SnyderVerse's popularity with an animated movie or comic book adapting his original scripts, but there's been no indication that's the plan.
Elsewhere during the conversation, Snyder also confirmed that there were indeed talks about releasing Zack Snyder's Justice League as a six-part series on HBO Max, only for it not to happen due to some undisclosed "legal rules."
You can watch the conversation between the Russo Brothers and Snyder in the video below.