Will the Snyder cut appear on HBO Max?

[thecolorsblend]

Zack knows the enthusiasm levels for his universe are high. Do you think a leader with that much clout is going to disappoint his followers if there's a serious offer of a continuation? Not a chance.

It's just about getting that offer.

If this is an ideological battle, Zack is being vindictive as we speak. ZSJL was deemed unwatchable, but right now it's being praised left and right. If this is a financial battle, Zack is being vindicated there as well. WB did Zack dirty. As I said, it would be extremely satisfying if he, the outcast, had them crawl back to him. It would be one of the most remarkable long games in entertainment history.

ZSJL is out of the bottle now. The world has seen it, and the drums are only going to get louder about what happens next. And if nothing happens, they're going to want a worthwhile explanation why. That may prove to be more difficult to answer than the studio expected.

As you say, the bell's already been rung. They've heard it.

AT&T seems to be getting the ROI they expected from ZSJL. The buzz about ZSJL is off the charts. If The Powers That Were from WB still had jobs rn, they'd all get fired Monday morning. But that's already been done and now there's nothing left. Looking to the future, I can't imagine that serious businessmen like the kind you'd expect to see at AT&T aren't questioning how best to maximize what they've built here. You don't get to AT&T's level if you throw opportunities away like they're nothing. With ZSJL, they've had a taste and now they want more. Be sure of that.

This much I can say tho. If I'm a big shot at AT&T, I have less of a reason now than ever before to want to listen to what WB has to say. As I've said, AT&T is in the business of business. They've never been part of the Hollywood Kool-Aid factory and they have no desire to join in. They only thing they give two F's about is making a profit. And they seem to be making a profit rn.

I find it strange that AT&T is simultaneously the worst thing that's ever happened to DC Comics but the best thing that's ever happened to WB. I suppose it's like anything else in life. You take the good with the bad.

No matter how you want to look at it, Hollywood will never be the same again if AT&T's "Business first" approach succeeds.

Side Note: This is not a political thing. But it is a non-controversial fact that Snyder has libertarian sympathies out the wazoo. I daresay the success of ZSJL may not have been possible under a different filmmaker. Basically by definition, libertarians are capitalists. Snyder has a creative interest in ZSJL. But he also has an ideological commitment to the financial aspects of the movie. The success of blowing the dust off ZSJL may not be a fungible commodity. ZSJL is the perfect storm of a parent company financially committed to business and a director ideologically committed to both free artistic expression and to profit in likely equal measures. As you know, Snyders don't exactly grow on trees in that town.

For those reasons, I'm beginning to rethink the wisdom of updating other butchered movies. Success is not guaranteed. Perhaps it is better to build new creative enterprises from here on in rather than try to salvage old ones. Yes, even the Ayers cut of Suicide Squad. As it stands, 2021 is already a crowded slate for HBO Max, such that a restored cut of Suicide Squad might get drowned out over and against, say, The Matrix 4.

Do you believe it's time to move forward? Or should fans keep asking for Suicide Squad, Batman Forever, etc?

[thecolorsblend]

I'm making my way through stuff I've had bookmarked since forever but never got around to reading until now. There's this gem:

https://news.avclub.com/patty-jenkins-slams-joss-whedons-justice-league-i-don-1845847710

To hell with the story, it's a moot point these days. Rather, focus your attention on the comments. Man, those commenters have got to be living in a world of $#!+ right now. My favorite:

"Marvel planned everything out in advance to establish the MCU as a shared world"

That's just plain not true. The Avengers thing never came about until halfway through principal photography on Iron Man. There's a reason Favreau complained that he had basically complete freedom on the first Iron Man and then the expectation of shooting an Avengers infomercial for the second one. The degree to which Phase One-era Marvel Studios planned everything out and their burn-rate on directors rivals Lucasfilm for sheer incompetence. They adjusted nimbly, they got it under control, but things were pretty scattershot for a few years there.

[The Dark Knight]

Do you believe it's time to move forward? Or should fans keep asking for Suicide Squad, Batman Forever, etc?

To me it's about timing. I'd like the Ayer cut as much as anybody, and in time I think that can happen. A restored Ayer cut is important for Snyderverse purity. But we need to get our priorities right and at the right time. What is the ultimate dream? To restore the Snyderverse as an active brand. If the original continuity is going to live again the time to push for that is right now.

If that can't happen I say we then return our full gaze to demanding other director's cuts. Originally the idea was to give Zack and Affleck a sense of closure by making ZSJL available. But things can escalate, and let's hope they do.

In a perfect world I'd have Affleck doing a miniseries while JL2 and 3 are in development. Gossip sites claimed Affleck has signed up for such a production and it would be announced later in the year. Their credibility is on the line. Let's see how that pans out, because I'm feeling confident the international release of the Snyder cut will pique studio interest - even if they loathe Zack and his style.

"Marvel planned everything out in advance to establish the MCU as a shared world"

WW, MOS, BvS, SS and ZSJL represent a tight continuity and Zack publicly shared what future JL instalments would entail. Anybody who claims the DCEU as it originated didn't have a clear plan don't know what they're talking. They just didn't like it.

[BatmanFurst]

Is a Schumacher cut of Forever even possible? Like are all the scenes from that original cut still around after 20 years?

[Gotham Knight]

Seeing as this is kinda the official thread, I'll post this here:

I'm watching Justice League and will post my thoughts here in this post as I have them.

I'm a quarter or so through Part 2 and so far I am shocked how little is changed. It feels like an assembly cut that just adds suppliment material. The stuff that works best is the tonal consistency and the connective tissue. Mr. Wolf being reinstated as an agent of Darkseid is an obvious improvement, but these are small things and aren't leaving me impressed yet. It feels like a more coherent version of a not very good movie that is shockingly more familiar than I thought it would be,. Still bad. Just slower about it. 

Edit 1: Mr. Wolf is far and away the best thing going for this version. Strong connective tissue. The Barry Allen intro exemplifies one of the chief problems with Snyder. Not being able to handle multiple bits of business at once. A lovely series of images it is and it would be a wonderful first moment in a Flash solo picture, but in a giant ensemble we need to accomplish many things at once and expedite. This sequence does nothing but say "here is the Flash." That is why stuff like this gets cut.

Edit 2: Half done and lots of things going on. Some of it quite strong, but there is so many different separate threads and everything is so decentralized that nothing takes hold. Wolf is still strong and frankly feels like the main character because he feels central. Still shocked at how much of this is literally the same, so much so that I'd say Whedon had much less of an impact on this movie than previously believed.

[The Laughing Fish]

Still shocked at how much of this is literally the same, so much so that I'd say Whedon had much less of an impact on this movie than previously believed.

Excuse me, but I don't know you could think Whedon didn't make much of an impact. He changed the beginning of the film, neutered Steppenwolf and removed all traces of Darkseid and Desaad, removed Aquaman's meeting with Vulko that explored his resentment towards his own heritage, and removed Cyborg's character arc in favour of a pointless Russian family subplot. Not to mention the addition of pointless reshoots of unfunny jokes and butchered introductory scenes Superman and Batman scenes he wrote.

If you're halfway through the film and think Whedon didn't make much of an impact...I don't know what else to say.

The main plot itself was always going to be the same. It was a matter of how it was told that was going to be different. Similar to how Superman II was when comparing Lester and Donner. Same plot, different movie.

[The Dark Knight]

Is a Schumacher cut of Forever even possible? Like are all the scenes from that original cut still around after 20 years?

In terms of arranging the original sequencing that wouldn't be a problem. I think BF is the most underrated Batman movie, and fully restored it's elevated further.

[Silver Nemesis]

I signed up specially to Now TV just to watch this. By a strange coincidence, I happened to re-watch David Lynch's Lost Highway (1997) last night, which makes prominent use of 'Song to the Siren' by This Mortal Coil - the same song that plays during the JL scene where Barry saves Iris from the car crash. It was going through my head anyway, and then it suddenly popped up in the movie. Weird.

Anyway, now I've got that irrelevant and uninteresting comment out of the way, here's my review.

For many of us comic fans, the goal behind the shared cinematic DC universe was not only to allow the classic heroes to interact with one another on screen (that novelty wore off some time ago), but also to adapt the broader interplanetary mythology of the DC universe into a cinematic production. We've seen that mythology translated into animation and live action TV, and WB tried giving it the movie treatment in the 2011 Green Lantern movie. But I feel like this is the first live action film to fully capture it on screen with an appropriately epic scale. This is, in essence, the storytelling destination that all the earlier DCEU movies were building up to. It might well be my favourite DCEU movie to date, as well as Snyder's most accomplished film as a director.

I can see why others are comparing its world building and mythical scope with Tolkien's work. You've got the ancient Dark Lord who was defeated by an alliance of different races during an earlier age, and the powerful relics he left behind that are now being sought by his wraith-like acolytes. There's also a creepy Lovecraftian vibe to the villains in this version of the film that was totally absent from the Whedon cut. I noticed some Arthurian allusions too. The most obvious is the round table Bruce describes when he and Alfred are discussing the renovation of stately Wayne Manor, but there's also the line "The future has taken root in the present" – spoken when Superman is resurrected – which is taken from John Boorman's Excalibur (1981). The movie feels epic and mythical to a degree no previous DC film has achieved.

Snyder's Justice League legitimises some of the more elliptical plot points in Batman v Superman, and I wonder if some of the critics who trashed BvS might look more favourably on it if they were to re-watch the Ultimate Edition after seeing JL. I think some of them would. This film's certainly getting a more positive critical reception than BvS did. Perhaps more reviewers are starting to realise that not every superhero team-up movie has to follow The Avengers formula. One problem I had with the 2017 version of JL is that it came across as DC's attempt at making an Avengers film, which I suspect is what Whedon and the studio intended. By contrast, Snyder's JL doesn't feel like it's trying to imitate anything. It's its own movie with its own identity, and all the better for it.

One of the film's biggest strengths is its deliberate pacing and structure. I can see why the runtime would be off-putting to some, and that's fair enough. But I liked how scenes where allowed to play out, and how character-centric moments were given time to breathe; to let the viewer soak in the atmosphere. The film doesn't breathlessly jump from one location to another the way some of the recent Star Wars films did. Instead it takes it's time focussing on each plot point before moving on to the next. This allows for actual scenes, and not just rapid fire montages. When I heard the film was four hours long, I was concerned that the extra footage would be mostly CG action. In reality though, most of the deleted scenes are quiet character-driven moments that flesh out the protagonists and make us care more about what's at stake. The fact so many of these scenes were removed from the theatrical cut makes me realise just how badly edited the Whedon version was to begin with.

Here Victor Stone and his father are treated like proper characters and Aquaman is portrayed with far more dignity. Steppenwolf also benefits enormously from the restoration of his deleted scenes. He actually has a personal motive this time, which I don't remember him having in the Whedon cut. Maybe he did have one there too, but if so it was less clearly stated. In general, the chemistry between the actors in Snyder's cut is more natural and less forced than in the theatrical release. In Whedon's cut I felt like Cyborg and Aquaman were just tagging along for much of the movie, and Whedon's signature banter felt misplaced. In this version, however, each of the six protagonists is given their own story arc that fits neatly within the broader overarching narrative. The plot makes good use of each hero and feels cohesive in the way it interweaves their storylines. It was also nice to see Marc McClure's scenes restored, since he was edited out of the theatrical version entirely. Affleck also looked a lot healthier and in better shape here than in Whedon's version. You can tell his heart was in it more. And we finally got to see Darkseid in a live action movie! How cool is that?

The episodic chapter headings are a nice touch that help structure what might very easily have been a much messier film (see the theatrical cut for proof of that). Andrei Tarkovsky did the same thing with Andrei Rublev (1966), and I find it makes the film easier to revisit if you're not in the mood to watch the entire thing in one sitting. For my initial viewing, I watched Justice League in two sittings spread across one afternoon. But I think the next time I watch it I'll probably do so over two nights, watching three chapters at a time. I expect the chapter breaks were inserted for that very reason, similar to the intermission you might get in a theatrical release. It's a smart editing choice.

On the negative side, I still don't like Miller's take on the Flash. His fast-talking distractible characterisation is far more indebted to Peter Parker than to the serious and analytically-minded Barry Allen of the comics. He could maybe pass for the Bart Allen Impulse, but he's no Barry. The back story's there, and so are the powers, but his personality is too far removed from the source material for my tastes. The movie's CG effects are acceptable for the most part and a definite improvement over the theatrical cut, but I did notice one or two shots that were unconvincing. For example, those early shots of Lex talking with Steppenwolf in the water didn't look quite right. Much as I enjoyed seeing (SPOILER) Martian Hunter, (end SPOILER) his scenes felt tacked on to me. You could remove them entirely and they wouldn't affect the central plot one bit. The same is true of the final Knightmare sequence. In both cases, I expect these were elements Snyder would have preferred to keep for the next film, but used here because he feared he mightn't get a shot at a sequel. This is understandable. I think the scene between Lex and Deathstroke is the most organic place for the movie to end, but I'm glad we finally got to see a proper scene between (SPOILER) Affleck's Batman and Leto's Joker. It was well acted and I thought Leto's performance helped wash away the bad taste left by Suicide Squad. It's also the first time I've heard Batman tell the Joker he's going to kill him since the 1989 movie. (end SPOILER)

Overall I enjoyed it. It's superior to the Whedon cut in literally every way. Better direction, writing, acting, editing, music, action and cinematography. The plot is more layered, the characters are better developed and the pacing is better suited to the scope of the narrative. I thought it was a good film, and like I said before – it might be my favourite DCEU movie so far.

[The Dark Knight]

I can see why others are comparing its world building and mythical scope with Tolkien's work.

One of the film's biggest strengths is its deliberate pacing and structure.

Here Victor Stone and his father are treated like proper characters and Aquaman is portrayed with far more dignity. Steppenwolf also benefits enormously from the restoration of his deleted scenes.

In this version, however, each of the six protagonists is given their own story arc that fits neatly within the broader overarching narrative. The plot makes good use of each hero and feels cohesive in the way it interweaves their storylines.

Much as I enjoyed seeing (SPOILER) Martian Hunter, (end SPOILER) his scenes felt tacked on to me. You could remove them entirely and they wouldn't affect the central plot one bit. The same is true of the final Knightmare sequence.

I agree with all this. We're on the same page with all the key areas.

Overall I enjoyed it. It's superior to the Whedon cut in literally every way. Better direction, writing, acting, editing, music, action and cinematography. The plot is more layered, the characters are better developed and the pacing is better suited to the scope of the narrative. I thought it was a good film, and like I said before – it might be my favourite DCEU movie so far.

I was shocked as to how much was changed. It was more than just supplementary material. Whedon should be hiding under the biggest rock imaginable because the difference between the two cuts is severe. This is a professional, polished production and it's the Whedon version, with terrible mouth CGI, which feels like an assembly rush job. A great movie was made bad. But it's now great again. Glad you enjoyed the movie.

[The Laughing Fish]

Snyder has revealed he filmed the new epilogue scenes against WB's wishes but was forced to make one particular compromise. Spoilers below.

https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2564640/zack-snyder-says-the-studio-had-rules-about-what-he-couldnt-put-in-his-snyder-cut-of-justice-league

So much for the multiverse. What's the point of having it if you're still going to prevent other directors from doing their own take on certain characters? It's this sort of sh*t I'm now having doubts about The Flash.

Meanwhile, a black and white version of ZSJL subtitled "Justice is Gray" will be playing soon on HBO Max.

https://twitter.com/snydercut/status/1373424594787446786