Completing director Zack Snyder’s Justice League could cost up to $30 million. In 2016, Snyder envisioned a Justice League that was nearly four hours long. Snyder trimmed that vision down to a theatrical two hours and twenty minutes to appease the studio. This was essentially the first very rough cut of what would become the film audiences saw in 2017.

Snyder left Justice League early on in post-production due to a family tragedy, leaving behind an incomplete project with no special effects. Warner Bros. brought in famed writer/director of Marvel’s The Avengers, Joss Whedon, to pick up where Snyder left off. Unbeknownst to the public at the time, Whedon then proceeded to oversee extensive rewrites and reshoots. In November of 2017, Warner Bros. had spent a reported $300 million to produce, market, and release a movie containing only a fraction of Snyder’s actual work. That film was met with unenthusiastic reactions from fans and critics alike while earning a disappointing $658 million at the worldwide box office.

Related: Why Justice League’s Snyder Cut Is Releasing On Streaming, Not In Theaters

In the years since Justice League’s initial release, there’s been an overwhelming amount of discussion surrounding the previously-rumored Snyder Cut. Fans now know, thanks to Snyder himself, his Justice League exists and is being released on HBO Max in 2021. According to THR, Snyder along with the original post-production crew are reuniting to cut, score, and finish visual effects on an “entirely new” version of Justice League. " While it is currently unclear how much all of this will cost, sources have estimated a figure between $20-30 million.

Snyder Cut Justice League HBO Max

Snyder's Justice League could be more profitable than its 2017 counterpart. Fans responded to the latter with a #ReleaseTheSnyderCut rallying cry that lit the internet ablaze. Not only do numerous petitions and campaigns exist online calling for the release Snyder’s version, but a billboard was raised at New York Comic-Con last year. The situation erupted on the second anniversary of Justice League’s 2017 release when #ReleaseTheSnyderCut trended #1 on Twitter — the most tweeted hashtag about a Warner Bros. movie. This is why Warner Media and HBO Max made the lucrative (and wise) decision to reach out to Snyder's agent about completing Snyder’s Justice League.

The Justice League Snyder envisioned probably wouldn’t have made it into theaters. How he aims to explore the various character arcs simply isn’t possible in the time allotted at the box office. Thanks to the rise of streaming in recent years and its subsequent platforms, fans will finally get to see a faithful culmination of plot threads that began in Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice; a prospect that will inevitably lead to more subscribers of HBO Max moving forward. The work required to complete the project will also bring money into visual effects houses that are suffering due to the coronavirus pandemic. In addition to all of this, the hype should do wonders to promote Snyder's continued involvement in the DCEU. Whether it costs $20 million or 30, Snyder's Justice League is good for business.

More: When Justice League’s Zack Snyder Cut Could Release

Source: THR

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