The road to Justice League arriving on the big screen was long and full of potholes. Even before Zack Snyder was ever attached to the project, George Miller's Justice League: Mortal was famously on the cusp of beginning its Austrailia shoot before production was delayed, leading to an eventual cancelation altogether. A few years later, Zack Snyder's success with Man of Steel convinced Warner Bros. to move forward with the team-up movie once again, green lighting Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice for Zack Snyder to bridge the gap from Man of Steel to a two-part Justice League team up.Unfortunately, things were far from smooth sailing after Snyder's Batman v Superman was panned by critics and saw a less-than-anticipated (but still profitable) box office haul. WB considered replacing Snyder on the project, but he'd already spent so much time in planning and pre-production, and Justice League was scheduled to shoot mere weeks after BvS was released. Snyder stayed in the director's chair, but the movie saw some quick adjustments to accelerate the plan to lighten the tone after BvS's darker superhero conflict. Snyder oversaw 100% of Justice League's principal photography and completed significant work on his director's cut, but Warner Bros. executives were not happy with the direction things were going, so Joss Whedon was brought in to work on the movie.Related: Zack Snyder's Cut Of Justice League Was More Complete Than You RealizeIn May of 2017, it was revealed that tragedy had struck the Snyder family and Zack would be stepping down from the director's chair, and Whedon would oversee additional rewrites, reshoots, and the rest of post-production. The movie that was eventually released was dogged by critics for its tonal mishmash, underdeveloped characters, poor CGI, and a number of other issues, resulting in a franchise-low box office haul.Now, a new revelation alleges that Snyder was actually fired long before his official departure from the movie. If true, this information sheds light on a number of behind the scenes rumors and calls into question a good deal of the narrative surrounding Justice League's reshoots and post-production.This Page: What We Were Told About Justice League's Production

What We Were Told About Justice League's Production

joss whedon justice league

After Whedon took over production, Justice League producers were quick to claim that Whedon's reshoots were merely some additional scenes and that Snyder was the one to convince Whedon to come aboard in the first place, asking him to oversee the end of production and helping Zack "finish his vision." It wasn't long before rumors of massive reshoots began to spread, alleging that significant chunks of the movie would be redone, but it was quickly denied by the studio, painting the reshoots as a few weeks of routine pickup shoots typical of big blockbusters.

The rumors continued to come, the most pervasive of which suggested that Joss Whedon was using the reshoots to significantly lighten the movie's tone, but Gal Gadot said the "tone can't be completely different" and other sources confirmed that it was still following Snyder's overall vision.

Talk of Snyder's plan, vision, and tone would only get more pervasive during the movie's official promotional tour, where the cast reiterated that Justice League was still "Zack Snyder's Movie." Ben Affleck admitted that Justice League would be "a big change tonally" from what came before, but reiterated that the movie was "Zack's DNA" and that after all his work in pre-production and principal photography, it wasn't possible for it to escape his influence.

Zack Snyder Justice League Directors Cut

How Snyder's Firing Changes the Narrative

It was obvious from the minute Justice League hit theaters that much of Snyder's story and visuals had been scrubbed from the movie during the reshoot process, and the news that Snyder was fired in early 2017 just confirms that the intent all along was a rejection of his vision, not an effort to complete it.

It has since been revealed that the movie's release date should have been delayed, but it wasn't in order to protect some executive bonuses, so it can only be assumed that the attempt to pretend for a number of months that Snyder was still the director, then continue to spread the narrative that his vision was still being pursued afterward, was likely an attempt to maintain an appearance of stability for similar financial concerns.

Related: Deleted Black Suit Scene Finally Gives Superman A Justice League Character Arc

Warner Bros. reportedly expected Justice League to fail for months before release, so the decision to have Whedon change Snyder's movie as drastically as he did was the studio going "all in" to erase what they saw as the harmful effects of Snyder's take on the world and it's characters, using the movie instead as an attempt to pivot characters like Superman into a lighter and more hopeful version of the Man of Steel. Based on reviews, the movie was at least successful in that aspect, with many critics rating Justice League a very flawed movie, yet labeling it as a step in the right direction for the franchise.

Justice League set - Zack Snyder with Bat signal

At this point, it's abundantly clear that reports that both Zack and Debbie Snyder's involvement in future DC movies will be basically nonexistent are true. They're currently credited as producers for movies like Wonder Woman 2 and Aquaman, but those credits are "in name only," as they won't be providing any creative input.

It may be a lackluster ending for the man that kicked off the DCEU and dedicated nearly a decade of his life to bringing these characters to the big screen. While it's understandable that Warner Bros. felt it needed to make drastic changes in light of poor critical reception, the circumstances surrounding this situation are especially unfortunate for Snyder, who has said he wishes he had the chance to finish his movie for fans of Man of Steel and Batman v Superman.

While it may be the end of Snyder's time with DC, he still has a number of projects in the works with The Last Photograph and his adaptation of The Fountainhead. Hopefully his stylistic and storytelling techniques can lead him to a less divisive environment than he experienced in his time with the DCEU.

NEXT: The DC Movie Universe is Worse Without Zack Snyder

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