Although the two-year anniversary of Justice League is right around the corner, interest in the movie's unreleased Snyder Cut is stronger than ever. Following Zack Snyder's departure from Justice League due to a family tragedy, extensive reshoots were implemented on the movie, with the version of Justice League released into theaters marking a huge detour from Snyder's vision. This swiftly led to an ongoing campaign to convince Warner Bros. to release Snyder's original cut of the superhero ensemble, and one that hasn't shown the slightest indication of fizzling out.
In fact, recent developments have seen a massive rise in interest in the Snyder Cut, with the past few weeks in particular pushing the issue into increasingly mainstream attention. Much of that can be attributed to Jason Momoa confirming to have seen the Snyder Cut earlier this year, along with the support he has publicly voiced for its release on multiple occasions. However, he's hardly alone, with an expanding number of cast and crew members adding their voices to the growing Snyder Cut chorus.
The Justice League situation is very much an unusual and perhaps even unprecedented one for a major superhero movie. While prior fan campaigns have led to the release of such alternate cuts as Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut and Blade Runner: The Final Cut, the particular circumstances of the Snyder Cut are clearly unique, given the continuation of the DCEU franchise and the degree to which Zack Snyder himself has fueled the demand for it. In point of fact, a clear timeline exists for all the major developments in the campaign for the Snyder Cut's release, right up to the current blitz in mainstream attention it is receiving. Here is the timeline of the most significant events in the Justice League Snyder Cut campaign.
The Snyder Cut Petition
When Justice League debuted in theaters on November 17, 2017, the film saw a disappointing opening weekend for a major superhero tent-pole; Justice League's final box office gross was well below expectations. At the same time, the public focus swiftly zeroed in on how drastically the movie had departed from what Snyder had intended, giving way to the creation of a Change.org petition for the release of Zack Snyder's original version of Justice League. Fan-driven campaigns are hardly a new phenomenon, but the petition for the Snyder Cut raised many eyebrows after raising over 100,000 signatures in a matter of days, and eventually accumulated nearly 180,000 signatures altogether. While the petition drew notable media coverage, further developments would also raise awareness of the changes implemented on Justice League and how different the theatrical version proved to be from Snyder's original cut of the film.
The ForSnyderCut Website Is Launched
The topic of the Snyder Cut drew more attention with the creation of ForSnyderCut.com, a website intended to spread awareness of Zack Snyder's version of Justice League founded by Fiona Zheng. The site would provide coverage of various developments in the push for the release of Snyder's cut of the movie along with numerous other features and would serve as a major hub of sorts for the Snyder Cut campaign. The site's creation along with an assembly of cosplayers taking a photo with a Snyder Cut banner outside of Warner Bros.' studio lot along with the online release of a storyboard featuring Darkseid on the day of the movie's digital home media release would help the idea of there being an alternate cut of Justice League begin to make the rounds. However, despite the unexpected developments of a petition and website advocating for the release of a completely different version of the movie, the prevailing narrative at the time was that whatever assembly of footage Snyder had shot was not anywhere near being in a releasable condition. Nevertheless, calls of the Snyder Cut's release would continue to persist, and would only grow stronger when the director himself began to stir the pot.
Zack Snyder Begins His Social Media Teases
The idea of the Snyder Cut didn’t truly begin to gain traction under early 2018, when Zack Snyder himself began releasing never-before-seen still images and storyboards from his cut of Justice League on social media. Aside from making clear his own awareness of the campaign for the release of his version of the film, Snyder’s social media posts also shed a great deal of light on just how different it was from the theatrical cut. Specifically, the images released by Snyder would reveal characters and story points removed from Justice League entirely, and often showed a completely new context for events seen in the theatrical version, such as the Justice League’s retrieval of Superman’s body. Snyder’s teases would eventually culminate in an image of a mural depicting Darkseid, ominously captioned with the words “A bell can’t be unrung.” As the push for the Snyder Cut would continue into 2019, Zack Snyder’s social media teases would as well, and with them, more and more light would be shed on how drastic a departure the theatrical version of Justice League had made from what Snyder had planned for the movie.
Deleted Characters And Cast Members Are Discovered
One facet seen in Snyder’s social media posts relating to Justice League would be the revealing of characters excised from the movie altogether, such as the previously mentioned reveal of Darkseid. Among the biggest bombs of Snyder's social media teases was his recent unveiling of General Swanwick (played by Harry Lennix in Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice) as a disguised Martian Manhunter. Additionally, not only deleted characters, but some previously unnamed actors who played them would also be discovered. Chief among these was the news of Ray Porter’s casting as Darkseid, revealed by The Film Exiles podcast, who would also later break the news of Peter Guinness having portrayed Desaad in the film. With the Snyder Cut campaign continuing to gain momentum, reveals of deleted characters and cast members would become a fairly regular occurrence as information trickled out on the changes implemented to Justice League.
Donations To The American Foundation For Suicide Prevention
As the push for the Justice League Snyder Cut began to ramp up in 2018, supporters would adopt one of the staple elements of the campaign by organizing donations to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in honor of Snyder’s daughter. As events organized to spread awareness of the Snyder Cut would grow more prominent, the charitable endeavors would follow suit, such as a banner flown over Warner Bros. being financed with a crowdfunding campaign that included a matching donation to the AFSP. With substantial donations being made to the organization, Snyder would involve himself in the conversation more directly, releasing a T-shirt with a graph depicting a cryptic blueprint of his planned five-movie arc for the DCEU. The shirt also included a quote from Joseph Campbell, “All the Gods, All the Heavens, All the Hells, Are Within You”. All told, the Snyder Cut campaign has amassed over $110,000 dollars for suicide prevention to date.
Jason Momoa Calls For The Snyder Cut's Release On The Aquaman Press Tour
The release of Aquaman would mark a major turning point for mainstream awareness of the Snyder Cut, all thanks to Jason Momoa. With Aquaman being the first DC movie to be released following Justice League, Momoa drew attention back to the latter during the Aquaman press tour by revealing details of the ending of Snyder’s version of the movie, which served as a direct set up for the Aquaman movie. Snyder shortly thereafter released a still image from Arthur’s ending in his original cut as a subtle confirmation of Momoa’s revelation. Together, these drew plenty of attention for the notion of a completely different version of Justice League existing, but it was Momoa’s MTV News interview that caused a firestorm. When asked about the ongoing campaign for the Snyder Cut, the Aquaman star first expressed frustration with the nature of the film industry holding back actors from being fully candid, before becoming the first cast member to unambiguously call for the Snyder Cut’s release by saying “Yeah, F—k yeah, I want to see it!” While Momoa’s open support for the release of Snyder’s version of Justice League would lead to the matter being taken much more seriously than it had previously been, this would hardly be the last time that Jason Momoa would drop a major Snyder Cut bomb.
Zack Snyder Confirms The Existence Of His Cut Of Justice League
2019 has seen massive developments in both awareness for the release of the Snyder Cut and the demand for its release, with a three-day director's cut event hosted by Snyder back in March kicking the topic into high gear. Held at the Ahmanson Auditorium of the ArtCenter College of Design, the event hosted showings of Snyder's director's cuts for Dawn of the Dead, Watchmen, and Batman v Superman, each followed by a Q&A featuring Snyder and numerous other guests, which was also streamed on Vero. When questions inevitably went to the Snyder Cut during the Batman v Superman Q&A, Snyder explained that the backlash to the former's dark tone led to the Justice League script undergoing a rewrite to excise darker elements from the movie, such as Lois Lane being murdered in the Batcave by Darkseid. As the event ended, Snyder gave his first on-camera confirmation of the existence of his cut of Justice League when asked by an attendee in the autograph line, while also explaining that the decision to release it ultimately rests with Warner Bros. The news of Ray Porter's casting as Darkseid followed soon after, and taken together, these would prove to be a huge shift in public perception of the matter, with more developments set to come in the ensuing months.
Project Comic Con
With the existence of the Justice League Snyder Cut now confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt, the topic would make headlines once again with an endeavor dubbed "Project Comic Con", aiming to spread awareness of Snyder's version of the movie at the 2019 San Diego Comic Con. The crowdfunded campaign utilized various high-profile tools for drawing attention to Snyder's cut of Justice League, while also raising nearly $15,000 for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Ray Porter would also lend his support to Project Comic Con, giving a small nod to his involvement with Justice League with a tease of his Darkseid voice. Following San Diego Comic-Con, another grassroots campaign would be organized for the 2019 New York Comic Con, with comic book legend Rob Liefeld being a prominent supporter of the endeavor. For New York Comic Con, efforts to expand awareness of the Snyder Cut included a billboard in Times Square featuring quotes from numerous people connected to the film, with Zack Snyder himself conveying his gratitude on social media. This would also coincide with Snyder's aforementioned reveal of General Swanwick being Martian Manhunter, and it wouldn't be long until talk about the Snyder Cut would grow louder than ever before.
The Cast And Crew REALLY Begin Talking
With all of these developments behind it, the Snyder Cut is now seeing an ongoing explosion of mainstream attention. The renewed wave of media coverage for the issue would begin with a series of interviews with Jesse Eisenberg, Junkie XL, and Jason Momoa, all of whom would give different snippets of information on Snyder's cut of Justice League, while Momoa would cement his support for it, stating "I think the public needs to see it." This was soon followed by a pair of visual effects artists confirming a high level of completion of the movie's visual effects, while aerial second unit director Clay Staub would also champion the Snyder Cut as the "real" version of Justice League. Chatter around Zack Snyder's version of the movie would only continue to balloon from there, with a series of never-before-seen images from the movie being release online by Momoa, Ray Fisher, storyboard artist Jay Oliva. Snyder himself, meanwhile, has continued to pour gasoline on the fire, continuing to release numerous unseen stills from the film on social media as attention for his version of Justice League has continued to steadily and quite visibly rise.
The two-year anniversary of the theatrical release of Justice League has essentially coincided with the same amount of time dedicated to the campaign for the Snyder Cut's release, so there's no reason to expect it to run out of steam any time soon. In fact, the issue has risen to such a level of public prominence that seemingly every passing day now brings with it a new social media tease or a new member of the cast or crew coming forward to officially support the director's original cut being released. Whether anything will ultimately come of the current wave of expanding interest in the Justice League Snyder Cut remains to be seen, but at this point, there can be no doubt of its existence or that the number of people hoping to see it (including critics of Snyder's past DC movies) is rapidly growing.
