Well, there we are then. Mere days after fans started to believe that the rapturous success of Zack Snyder's Justice League could re-open the door to his cancelled sequels, Warner Bros. has shut down any hopes of that ever happening.
Zack Snyder's Justice League is the culmination of a years-long campaign to allow Snyder to share the DC superhero movie the way he had originally envisioned it. A family tragedy meant that he was forced to step away from the project back in 2017. Studio interference and substitute director Joss Whedon led to the theatrical release being a complete mess that left pretty much everyone cold.
The newly released "Snyder Cut", then, has been something of a vindication for the director, with critics and fans alike praising the four-hour edit. Even those of us who aren't that taken with it can admit that it's at least way more consistent than the 2017 version, and a better movie for it.
Unfortunately, while the fans have been more hopeful than ever that DC will officially bring back Snyder's planned Justice League sequels, Warner Media CEO Ann Sarnoff has pretty much ruled out a continuation of the story that began all the way back in Man Of Steel.
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"I appreciate that they love Zack's work and we are very thankful for his many contributions to DC," Sarnoff told Variety. "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.
"We wanted to give Zack the opportunity to complete his vision in a four-hour movie, which is impossible to do in theaters. We're happy that we have HBO Max to let the rope out as it were and allow the fans to see all four-hours of Zack's vision." Sarnoff added that David Ayer's Suicide Squad will not be getting a similar treatment, but I think we're all probably fine with that. There's no saving that one.
As disappointing as this is, Snyder himself feels optimistic that he could one day get to return to the DC universe. After all, there was once a time when the Snyder Cut seemed like this mythical, unobtainable thing - and now it's a celebrated DC live-action project.
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"I always go, 'what's more likely?'" the filmmaker told Entertainment Weekly "That Warner Bros. would ask me to make a sequel to Justice League? Or that they would resurrect a three-year-old movie, spend millions of dollars to restore it to my original [vision], and then release it? I think that the sequel would have been a more likely scenario than what's just happened. So, I guess in the face of that I say, 'Who knows what the future holds?'"
Featured Image Credit: Warner Bros.Topics: GAMING, Movies, News, Warner Bros, Justice League, DC