Twitter crusade hints Snyder Cut of 'Justice League' is coming to HBO Max
For better or worse, DC fans may be getting their way.
If you logged onto Twitter this weekend (shame on you), specifically on Sunday, you may have found it hard to avoid a references to the long-lost original cut of Justice League. #ReleaseTheSnyderCut trended on the social network throughout the day, largely thanks to a mobilized effort by fans of Snyder’s DCEU films to commemorate the anniversary of the film’s original release back in 2017.
The Snyder Cut has been a persistent mythic presence landscape of superhero cinema ever since director Zack Snyder was originally removed from the film in the wake of personal tragedy. The film was marred by subsequent reshoots helmed by Joss Whedon, an infamous CGI upper lip, and ended up a critical and commercial bomb. A sect of Snyder fans have long been vocal about their desire to see his cut of the film, and while for a time it seemed that such a film may not exist at all, the last year or so has made it abundantly clear that Snyder not only has a cut of the film but wants people to see it.
Over the last few months, Snyder’s posted peeks of the film with increasing regularity. Much of this has taken place on his Vero account , a social network seemingly populated by a party of one (Zack Snyder). Composer Junkie XL recently mentioned having finished the score for Snyder’s Justice League. Elsewhere, both Kevin Smith and Aquaman actor Jason Momoa have confirmed they’ve seen the film. With so many high-profile actors onboard, the release of the Snyder Cut seems all but imminent.
While the tweetstorm may have started out as a fan movement, it soon became clear there was something bigger at play. Over the course of the day, Batman actor Ben Affleck and Wonder Woman actor Gal Gadot voiced their support for the release of the Snyder Cut via Twitter. Neither had previously commented on the Snyder cut, and their social media accounts largely serve as a platform for press release tweets. A quick scroll through Affleck and Gadot’s feeds reveals only sporadic sponsored posts or promotional materials. Basically, they don’t tweet unless they have to — which might suggests that yesterday, they were professionally obligated to speak up.
The long-standing theory has been that the Snyder Cut will receive an official release via HBO Max when the streaming service launches (we’ve even written about it here). This theory began to seem even more plausibile when Watchmen showrunner Damon Lindelof posted on Instagram strongly hinting that he has seen the movie and vocally supporting its eventual release.
As Lindelof is already an HBO Max showrunner, it all feels like more than a coincidence. It’s hard to look at the events of the Snyder Cut Discourse from this past weekend and not notice that some of it feels staged. This isn’t to imply that Gadot and Affleck don’t want a film they likely worked very hard on released so much as it is an observation as to how these press cycles tend to work. It feels incredibly safe to say that Warner Bros. have decided to incorporate the fan demand for the film into the eventual rollout, which will likely reveal its debut on HBO Max. This is, after all, how these things work. Two years of silence followed by a day of vocal support is too much to be a coincidence.
Though there’s still no official word on the film’s release, prepare yourselves. Despite The Hollywood Reporter claiming otherwise, for better or worse, the Snyder Cut is almost certainly about to be Released.
