Justice League: Warner Bros. is spending $70 million on the Snyder Cut

Warner Bros. is spending more money on Zack Snyder’s new version of Justice League than it spent on superhero movies like Joker.

After years of begging and pleading for Warner Bros. to release the mysterious Snyder Cut of Justice League, the studio finally gave in and committed to letting director Zack Snyder execute his vision, which will be released in four one-hour segments on HBO Max next year. And according to The Wrap, they’re spending $70 million to make it happen.

Some of that may come down to reshoots. Yesterday, we reported that several actors were going back to work on reshoots, including Ben Affleck (Batman), Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman), Henry Cavill (Superman) and Ray Fisher (Cyborg). Jason Mamoa (Aquaman) Ezra Miller (The Flash) weren’t on the call sheet, for whatever reason.

Since then, some doubt has been cast on that, with Cavill telling Collider shortly before the reshoot news broke that he’s “not shooting anything additional.” Although of course things could have changed since then, as he acknowledged.

Regardless, $70 million is a lot of money, even on top of a movie that cost $300 million to start with. (For the record, a low-SFX movie like Joker cost $55 million to make by itself.) It’s over double what we initially expected the new budget to be. In additional to normal shooting and post-production costs, surely some of that also involves on-set pandemic protections.

We got our latest official look at the Snyder Cut back at the DC FanDome in August:

If Warner Bros. is this happy to throw more money at the Snyder Cut, you wonder if they might go through on letting other directors have another crack at their movies. For example, after #ReleaseTheSnyderCut succeeded, there was a call to #ReleaseTheAyerCut of director David Ayer’s ho-hum 2016 Suicide Squad movie. A lot may depend on how well the Snyder Cut does when we see it next year.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels