This may upset or make a lot of people angry, but that’s ok.
So I’ve been seeing a lot of talk lately about people wanted Snyder to come back to DC to finish off the story he has been working on with Justice League 2 and 3 after the release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League was released on HBO Max. So far it seems to have been a hit critically and among the fans being positively reviewed by most people I’ve seen, even those that don’t like Snyder’s films, and those that don’t like his version of DC. Now I haven’t seen his Justice League yet, but I have some thoughts about this. I’ve enjoyed Snyder’s DC films, MoS was underrated to me and I love BvS, especially the ultimate cut. To me, I don’t see him coming back. I think that people should lower their expectations and don’t expect them to make more. I think we should be happy that we’ve gotten his cut, as WB and DC won’t return to Snyder going forward. I know people both will and won’t be happy with that, but we should face the facts.
The first, Zack Snyder left originally for a number of reasons, and one of them being that he couldn’t handle the amount of studio interference that was happening on Justice League. And whether we wanted it to or not, that would happen on the two sequels as well. Remember, DC and WB are the ones putting the money into it, and they will have as much control as they want as they want to make sure they get their money back. There’s a reason they interfered as much as they did, the Snyder films were not the hits they wanted them to be. They only barely made their money back on his films, so it makes sense that they are gonna interfere as much as possible to ensure they get their money back. There’s no way that they’ll spend the $1billion on the sequels to Justice League, when they know that they likely won’t make their money back on films they don’t know or think will be hits. They especially won’t put that money towards someone who is a very polarizing figure amongst fans.
Now you might say, “well they got him back to do the Snyder cut right?” That’s because they saw they could bring attention to their new streaming service, while spending a little bit of money to refinish a film that’s already mostly done. I mean Justice League was already done and made most of its money back, and they’re probably making bank on the Snyder cut after only spending $70 million to refinish the film. Heck they’re able to do another release with the Justice is Grey edition. So that’s 2 cuts AND they didn’t have to pay Zack to direct. They did pretty well for themselves with this. The only other reason they got Zack back was that they gave him creative control over the film. So he did it as a tribute to his daughter, as a way to bookend that stage of his life. And returning to do more sequels might bring back bad things from that time, as a lot of grief was caused by the amount of changes DC was making to the film.
Another the Snyderverse won’t be back, all the stuff that happened surrounding Justice League. A lot of stuff happened on the set of Justice League after Snyder left/was forced out. A lot of stuff that had been in the news since, stuff that WB will want people to forget and be distracted by. Stuff that by continuing the Snyderverse, they’ll have to deal with. Stuff they won’t deal with, as has been shown in Ray Fisher’s Accountability > Entertainment movement (I guess it could be called that). This is all stuff that won’t be dealt with, especially by the point that the sequels could get made. The people that created, reinforced, and encouraged that environment will still be there, and will directly benefit from the sequels. And so if the sequels do end up happening, they will likely happen without Fisher as Cyborg. I mean we haven’t heard anything about the solo Cyborg movie since A>E started. I don’t think Snyder wants or really should go back to that environment.
Remember people, Snyder will not have the freedom with the sequels that he had with the Snyder Cut. If we get the Sequels, it will likely be a mixture between Justice League and BvS in terms of studio involvement.
In terms of the wider DC movie verse, I also don’t see them continuing it to avoid confusion. I know they’ve talked about going about it as more of a multiverse, but we haven’t seen anything with that yet. So there will be a lot of confusion around that and with what is in what timeline. I mean Marvel has barely even scratched the surface with the idea of the multiverse, and that’s an important part of Marvel’s future. I think DC really needs to think about what it wants to do, cause outside of The Batman, The Flashpoint movie, and maybe Black Adam, everything else stays within the same universe and timeframe.
Yes I would like to see what Zack would have done with the sequels, but the way DC is going that won’t happen unless it fits into what DC wants to do with their movie universe. I think the only way we’ll see it is if DC decides to do them animated. That way they don’t have to worry as much about being as involved as there’s not as much budget, and because it could be a smaller production we could see Zack have more control over the films. As they won’t do it live action, especially spending that much just to put it on HBO Max, which would be one way to avoid confusion. But again it’s likely not going to happen no matter how much people want it to. No amount of fan hashtags will cause them to spend that money, as it will not turn into box office, as we’ve seen in the past.
In the wake of the release of the Snyder cut we’ve seen a number of other hashtags and things calling for other cuts. Like the Ayer cut which also won’t happen, or the George Lucas cut of the Star Wars sequels. Which to me is either a joke, as people have been saying that the Snyder cut didn’t exist for years until it was announced that it was coming. The reason I think this is because the George Lucas cuts of the Star Wars sequels actually don’t exist. There is no footage, no scripts, no version of a George Lucas lead sequel trilogy. George gave Disney an overview of what he would do with a sequel trilogy, but it’s pretty obvious that they didn’t go that route. And again, Disney would not spend the likely over $1 billion to remake the sequels with George Lucas as the creative lead.
In short, I would like to see the Zack Snyder lead Justice league sequels, but I don’t see it happening. And please, stop putting down other movie universes to make yours seem better, there’s a reason they’re doing well.
If anyone wants to talk about this or whatever, please leave a comment and be respectful.
Andy's Thoughts 