Fans finally got to see all four hours of “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” from Thursday and so far the reaction has been excellent if a little divided.
All seem to agree it’s an improvement on the Joss Whedon cut, how much of an improvement is up for debate. From my observations, a sizable contingent still hate it but more intriguingly plenty of Snyder sceptics have widely praised the film with a good proportion full-on loving it.
In the wake of the release, a vocal group of fans want more and want Snyder to complete his original five-film SnyderVerse vision of the three movies he’s done plus two follow-ups to “Justice League”.
Snyder himself, though happy to discuss what he had planned, has indicated he’s not doing any further DC films and now WarnerMedia Studios CEO Ann Sarnoff confirms the SnyderVerse is now a dead end.
Speaking with Variety, she was asked about the #RestoreTheSnyderVerse campaign underway, she said:
“I appreciate that they love Zack’s work and we are very thankful for his many contributions to DC. We’re just so happy that he could bring his cut of the ‘Justice League’ to life because that wasn’t in the plan until about a year ago. With that comes the completion of his trilogy. We’re very happy we’ve done this, but we’re very excited about the plans we have for all the multi-dimensional DC characters that are being developed right now.”
Part of the reason they are moving on according to Sarnoff is that Warners now seems to have finally gotten some big DC plans of their own – a multi-platform future where the characters pop up on streaming shows, video games, TV spinoffs, and movies along with a diverse range of creators:
“We’re always going to listen to our fans, but we are in service of the broadest fanbase and we owe them an integrated, holistic strategy. We are the shepherds of the franchise and hopefully when the fans see what we’ve got in store they’ll know that DC is in good hands across many different platforms with many different creators. We want different voices in the mix.
For certain fans that want singular voices, they may be disappointed, but we would ask them to be patient and see what we’ve got in store because perhaps the newer voices in the mix will have just as compelling stories to tell. On balance, you of course want to listen to your fans, but we do want to stay true to our vision and our mission for DC and build that out.”
She cites a show like the upcoming “Peacemaker” series spin-off of James Gunn’s “The Suicide Squad” as an example of the new and more unified vision for DC, adding that “you’ll see a lot more of that going forward.”
That said, there will also be original things in businesses that don’t relate which allows them to do standalone works like Todd Phillips’ “Joker” or Matt Reeves’ “The Batman”.
Sarnoff also confirms there are no plans to allow David Ayer to do his ‘preferred cut’ of “Suicide Squad,” saying very clearly: “We won’t be developing David Ayer’s cut.”
