When Zack Snyder did the impossible and was allowed to release his four hour-cut of Justice League on HBO Max, it basically opened a floodgate. Fans who hashtagged ReleasetheSnyderCut for almost three years changed their tune then to RestoretheSnyderVerse, a fan campaign aimed at convincing Warner Bros. to hire Snyder to continue making movies set in the DC Universe. Namely to finish his five-film arc for the DC Extended Universe that would be concluded with a two more Justice League films.
While WarnerMedia CEO Ann Sarnoff has strongly implied they are done with Snyder's vision of the DC films, a recent interview Snyder had on the YouTube show called Jake’s Takes (via Heroic Hollywood) asked Snyder if fans should “maintain hope” for the the SnyderVerse continuing, Snyder pretty much confirmed what everyone else knew deep down. That WB's wants nothing to do with his ideas:
“I would think about it this way. Yes, Warner Bros. has been aggressively anti-Snyder, if you will. And that’s… what can you say? What can I say? Clearly they’re not interested in my take. But I would also say that they certainly weren’t interested in my take on Justice League. They certainly made decisions about that. And I love the characters, and I love the worlds, and I think it’s an amazing place to make a movie. It’s glorious IP. So there’s that. I don’t know what could be done as you go forward, other than, I think the fan movement is so strong, and the fan community is so — the intention is so pure. And I really have huge respect for it. I would hope that cooler heads would prevail with [Warner Bros.] and that they would see that there’s this massive fandom that wants more of that. But who knows what they’ll do?”
None of this is really a surprise, given that WB not only edited down Batman v Superman back in 2016 to the point critics called the film "incomprehensible", but then they spent nearly $300 million total (between initial production and Joss Whedon's reshoots) to drastically alter the theatrical cut of Justice League so it was more like Avengers. All this comes back to fears that stemmed from Warner Bros. allowing Snyder to release his cut of Justice League to begin with. That audiences now believe that they can sway major studios to their whim. Whether that's true or this was a one-time thing propelled by WB needing properties to release during the COVID-19 pandemic remains to be seen. Stay tuned!
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