The decision to greenlight the Justice League Snyder Cut is a polarising one. Zack Snyder diehards are of course, elated — they’ve been pushing for the Snyder Cut ever since Justice League hit theatres in late 2017. Many others prefer a world in which the Snyder Cut isn’t even a thing, for a multitude of reasons. But, I’m concerned what all this means for the casual fan. Because according to Snyder (and frankly, it was to be expected), his version of the Justice League film that will be released on HBO Max will not be a part of the main DCEU canon. In an interview with Beyond the Trailer, Snyder said:
“I believe that it really starts to represent its own path. It’s kind of separate now from what I’d say the DC Cinematic Universe is in-continuity. It’s divergent in that way and I think that’s a good thing. The power of DC and one of its cool strengths is its multiverse concept and where they put filmmakers first and go ‘We want to hear your individual voices. Take these characters and do a run and show us what you would do with a run in the sense of traditional comic book writing,’ so I think that that is a cool and amazing canvas. For me, I think Justice League…you know, I’ve heard some someone say like ‘Oh, so you’re entering the SnyderVerse now.'”
As we know, there is already an established DCEU, in which the theatrical version of Justice League is canon. On top of that, there’s also Todd Phillips’ Joker which despite centring around the most popular DC villain of all time, and featuring young Bruce Wayne, is not part of the DCEU. I remember a bunch of my friends asking me last year if we were going to see Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker take on Ben Affleck’s Batman. By the time I had explained everything, they only had more questions, such as “Is Jared Leto’s Joker and Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, the same Joker?”
It also looks like Matt Reeves’ The Batman, will be part of a completely different universe, one which will then bleed into HBO Max and possibly birth a bunch of interconnected TV series. These things may not bother most of us who spend our days and nights reading comics and keeping up with movie news. We get it. But what about the casual fan?
Justice League Snyder Cut isn’t an ordinary director’s cut. It isn’t like the Batman V Superman Ultimate Edition, which was an expansion of the film we saw in theatres. The Justice League Snyder Cut is a completely different film altogether.
