Zack Snyder tells all about his ‘Justice League’

Filmmaker Zack Snyder talked about the long-awaited release of the Snyder Cut of ‘Justice League’ during an unfiltered and passionate live web panel at the inaugural Justice Con on Saturday evening. Here are five things we learnt about the much-awaited film from the freewheeling, hourlong panel:

Fans were awarded with a new clip form the Snyder Cut

While the first teaser for Snyder’s ‘Justice League’, set to premiere on HBO Max next year, won’t be shown until DC Fandome on August 22, the director shared an 18-second clip to tease eager fans. The clip shows Superman (Henry Cavill), just back from the dead, introducing himself to Alfred Pennyworth (Jeremy Irons). And instead of wearing his regular red and blue suit, he’s wearing a black one.

Snyder also talked about how Warner Bros executives were, not unsurprisingly, far from happy about the use of the black suit. “I thought from the beginning it was a great idea and I knew it was the correct evolution for him when he rose from the dead that he would be in the black suit,” said Snyder. “There was this obsession with it being funny or light or something. And for some reason the perception of the black suit made everyone feel like, ‘Oh, that sounds like you’re just trying to make the movie dark and scary.’”

No Whedon shots will make it into the Snyder Cut

Snyder confirmed that he will only be using the scenes he shot before leaving the film in the cut and he also said he’s never seen the original ‘Justice League’. “There will be no chance on Earth that I will use a shot prior or after I left the movie. I would destroy the movie, I would set it on fire before I would use a single frame that I did not photograph. That is a [expletive] hard fact,” said Snyder.

“I literally would blow that thing up, if I thought for a second…Anything you see in this movie that reminds you of the theatrical release — which again, famously, I literally have never seen — would be because that was a thing that I had done, and was being borrowed for whatever, that Frankenstein’s monster that you got in the theatre,” he passionately went on.

‘Justice League’ will largely be about Cyborg

The director reiterated that the Snyder Cut will largely tell Cyborg’s story, whose narrative was cut out in Whedon’s ‘Justice League’. When one of the panel moderators told Snyder that actor Ray Fisher, who plays Cyborg, had an axe to grind with him because he hasn’t seen the Snyder Cut yet, the director doubled down on the fact that the movie is a “lot about him”.

“He’s not gonna see it, well not for a while — and I’ll tell you why. … The movie’s gotta be close to done, because I want him to have the full [look]… Because it’s a lot about him.”

Snyder’s working on a completely different Steppenwolf

While Snyder was pretty coy when asked questions about the appearance of Green Lantern or even Darkseid, the movie’s new villain, he was happy to chat about Steppenwolf, the original film’s big baddy. “He’s just — he’s scary and cool,” said Snyder, adding that he hard at work updating the character for the new film. “He’s a spiky [expletive], I’m telling ya…He just wants Darkseid to accept him and take him back.”

There’s a chance the Snyder Cut could be a series, and not a film

Snyder was asked whether the HBO Max project will come as a feature-length film or a miniseries, and he said fans can look forward to DC Fandome, where this specific question will be answered. He also confirmed that the finished movie is definitely longer than 214 minutes. “Look, the truth is, regardless of how it comes out... you’ll always be able to watch it [in one sitting],” he said, adding that he’d love it if it did come out as a series as well.