After years of campaigning, the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut movement finally paid off when Warner Bros. debuted a 4-hour director's cut of Justice League on HBO Max last year, but the move didn't exactly have the desired effect.
Although the filmmaker's dedicated fanbase were delighted to see the "Snyder Cut," its release did little to placate his followers. In fact, if anything, it only made them even more adamant that the "SnyderVerse" should be fully restored.
Now, it's come to light that the decision to release the restored version of Justice League has come to be viewed as a mistake by studio higher-ups.
In Variety's piece on Warner Bros. Discover CEO David Zaslav's search for a "Kevin Feige-type" to run the DC Film and TV divisions, it's mentioned that insiders "have lamented that “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” never should’ve happened. Rather than quiet the unceasing online campaigning to #ReleasetheSnyderCut, the four-hour HBO Max feature only further entrenched the vocal and extremely online “Snyderverse” fanbase in opposition to the leadership at the studio in general and at DC in particular."
While there is undoubtedly some truth to this, WBD hasn't exactly done itself any favors with its more recent actions! Cancelling Batgirl may have saved the studio a few dollars, but it cost them a lot of good will and potentially severed relationships with talent. Possibly even more detrimental was the handling of the Ezra Miller situation.
With any luck, the recent hiring of Dan Lin as new DC chief will go some way towards turning things around and giving the DCEU (or whatever it winds up being referred to) some much-needed structure while also doing what he can to shine a more positive light on the studio.
About The Author:
Mark Cassidy is a writer, photographer, amateur filmmaker, and Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic from Dublin, Ireland.