Zack Snyder will film new scenes for his Justice League director’s cut after all. A new report says that Snyder is planning a one-week reshoot in October for the much-talked-about “Snyder Cut” that will involve Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne / Batman, Henry Cavill as Clark Kent / Superman, Gal Gadot as Diana / Wonder Woman, and Ray Fisher as Victor Stone / Cyborg. There’s no mention of Jason Momoa’s Arthur Curry / Aquaman and Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen / The Flash, suggesting that the new Zack Snyder’s Justice League scenes don’t include them.
This goes against what Snyder and HBO Max (the exclusive US home for Snyder Cut) had originally said, when Zack Snyder’s Justice League was announced back in May. While Warner Bros. Pictures and HBO Max — sister companies under the WarnerMedia umbrella — had reportedly committed to spend over $20–$30 million (about Rs. 150–225 crores) to help Snyder complete his version of Justice League, the money was said to go towards visual effects, background score, and new dialogues (if required). Now it seems that while working on it, Snyder has realised that a bit of filming is required.
Still, a week worth’s of reshoots is hardly a big deal, given big-budget movies such as Justice League don’t tend to film more than a minute or two of the script per day. What’s more interesting here though is the presence of Fisher, given he’s currently involved in a back-and-forth brawl of words with WarnerMedia. Fisher alleges that Justice League replacement director Joss Whedon, former DC Entertainment president Geoff Johns, and former DC Films chief Jon Berg created an atmosphere of abuse and misconduct on set in 2017, after Snyder had left due to a family tragedy.
That led WarnerMedia to launch an investigation into Justice League production in August. Since then, the studio has alleged that Fisher hasn’t cooperated with the investigation that forced the actor to release a screenshot that showed he had met with an investigator. Fisher also claims that new DC Films president Walter Hamada has privately thrown Whedon and Berg “under the bus”, though WarnerMedia refuted that as well. Earlier in September, Momoa lent his support to Fisher, asking for the guilty parties “to be held accountable.”
The Hollywood Reporter, which brings word of the new Snyder Cut reshoots, notes that people familiar with the matter have told it that Whedon was “difficult” with the cast of Justice League during his time on set in 2017. His style of direction was allegedly opposite of Snyder’s “collaborative approach” and the reshoots were a “messy and hastily assembled affair”. The report also notes that Fisher’s talks with Warner Bros. over a cameo in The Flash movie have stalled owing to this, with the actor asking for double what WB had offered. He’s agreed to return for Zack Snyder’s Justice League though, which suggests he’s happy to work with Snyder.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League will release in 2021, as a four-hour miniseries on HBO Max, and later as a four-hour movie. No global release plans have been announced, but Snyder said at DC FanDome they are working to make sure that international fans are cared for as well. However, it is yet unclear what that actually means. WarnerMedia has previously said it plans to continue working with existing partners in countries where HBO Max has no launch plans. In India, WarnerMedia has ties with Netflix, Amazon, and Disney+ Hotstar.
