We’re getting a ton of new info about the Snyder Cut of Justice League lately, including new material for the Flash, a new look for Steppenwolf, and more:
Zack Snyder is talking a lot lately about the Snyder Cut, his expanded version of 2017’s Justice League, the DC superhero team-up movie complete by Joss Whedon after Snyder had to leave the production due to a family crisis.
And some of what he’s said seems contradictory. For instance, just the other day in an interview, he said that the movie would have “four or five minutes of additional photography…for the entire movie.” But then, talking about the movie on his Vero account, it sounds like there was a lot more new stuff coming our way. “I’m excited for you guys to see the giant amount of movie that you have coming your way, he said. “It is probably a solid 2 and 1/2 hours of unseen footage in this movie. I would imagine, something like that.”
“A solid 2 and 1/5 hours” is a lot bigger than “four or five minutes,” but I think there’s a simple explanation. The movie was infamously cut down to fit into two hours, but most of the new stuff will be material that was shot but not remastered or seen. The four-minutes minutes of “additional photography” is probably brand new stuff Snyder shot just for the new version, not old stuff cut from the theatrical release.
And what’s in the unseen footage? A more measured approach to the character of the Flash (Ezra Miller), to start. “We have a shot in the movie where he turns and the shoes just explode off his feet because they’re not ready for that,” Snyder said. “A normal shoe wouldn’t stay together. It just shows how he needs his suit.”
In fact, Snyder seems to take the Flash’s powers pretty seriously. While the Flash was able to zip people to and fro with his incredible speed in the theatrical cut, Snyder doesn’t want any of that in his version. “I know a lot of people love that aspect of it; I just don’t … I think it goes against physics,” he said. “You say they’re protected by the Speed Force, but that’s open to interpretation. I feel like if you grab someone at the speed he’s moving at, you could literally tear their arm out of its socket. He’s moving so fast, it would literally peel the flesh off of somebody’s body, so he’s gotta be super careful with humans inside of the Speed Force.”
I suppose now is when we make the inevitable comment about how expecting superheroes to conform to the laws of physics is kind of fruitless. But there’s lots of angles you can take on a superhero story, from completely goofy to deadly serious, so carry on, Snyder.
So far as the character of Barry Allen goes, we’ll see a little of his love interest Iris West (Kiersey Clemons) as well as his incarcerated father (Billy Crudup), but little on how he actually got his powers. “I left that piece of story still out there to be told,” Snyder said. “I’d love to get at it at some point, but we’ll see.” I suppose they have to save some stuff for The Flash solo movie due out in 2022.
Finally, Snyder pointed something out about the newly released (but barely changed) trailer for the Snyder Cut, the one set to Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” that was briefly pulled over rights issues.
Around the 0:14 mark — as we look at an alternate version of Earth that’s been devastated by Darkseid and his armies — you’ll see a Joker playing card flutter by the screen. “I don’t want to give too much away with this shot because there’s a lot of cryptic messages in it and I don’t want to explain too much of it,” Snyder said. “Suffice it to say, a lot of the pieces are in this shot to what’s planned.”
We know that Jared Leto’s Joker will turn up somewhere in the movie. The specifics will have to wait.
Warner Bros. is spending upwards of $70 million on the Snyder Cut. And that’s not just going to polish shots that never saw the light of day in the first place; it’ll alter stuff we’ve already seen, too.
For instance, here’s what villain Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds) looked like in the theatrical cut:
Image: Warner Bros. Pictures
And here’s the newer, bulkier version:
Image: Warner Bros. Pictures
What other surprises does the movie have for us? Warner Bros. will release the Snyder Cut, which will be available in the form of four one-hour episodes, on HBO Max sometime in 2021.
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h/t Syfy Wire