Jesse Eisenberg Seemingly Just Learned There Won't Be a Justice League Sequel

Mark today on your calendar, as reporter and podcast host Josh Horowitz is pretty sure that July [...]

By Russ Burlingame

Mark today on your calendar, as reporter and podcast host Josh Horowitz is pretty sure that July 9, 2019, is the day Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice star Jesse Eisenberg finally learned that there is not going to be a Justice League Part 2. The movie, which still appears on Eisenberg's IMDb page, was apparently still a much-delayed go in the actor's mind until Horowitz disabused him of the notion during an interview today. Justice League Part One and Part Two were announced at the same time, with filmmaker Zack Snyder supposedly filming them back to back. That did not last long, though.

Snyder eventually, famously, either left Justice League or was forced out shortly after the death of his daughter. But even before that, a set visit during production on the film included quotes that indicated that Part Two was not guaranteed to happen, and might not happen with Snyder even if it did. Conventional wisdom says that before he exited the movie, the plan was to build a trilogy of films, but even at its most bullish, Warner Bros. only announced the two before things started to change. As for Eisenberg, he was built up in Batman v Superman, but appeared only for a few moments in a post-credits scene in Justice League.

We don't yet have any context for how Eisenberg responded that would lead Horowitz to believe he had broken the news, but given how busy he is and how relatively small his Justice League role was, it does not seem entirely implausible that the actor wasn't aware of the mess that Justice League has become, with two directors, a disappointing box office, and furious fans regularly petitioning Warner Bros. for the "Snyder cut" of the movie.

When Justice League was released in 2017, with Snyder as the sole credited director of the movie but everyone knowing that Joss Whedon had overseen significant reshoots and dramatically cut the film back from its original runtime to meet studio demands, the film was relatively well received -- as long as the bar you are using for that statement is the one set by other DC movies, which up to that point had been largely hated by critics and divisive among fans.

Its poor box office performance cemented what many fans already expected: Snyder was done with DC films for the foreseeable future, and Justice League Part Two was shelved indefinitely. Turns out those fans, though, might have been a step ahead of some members of the actual cast.

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