Fans hoping to convince Warner Bros. to release an extended cut of Justice League as envisioned by director Zack Snyder have taken out a billboard in San Diego to greet fans during Comic Con International, marking the latest in a series of highly visible requests from the fans. It is also, following on the heels of Wynonna Earp‘s similar campaigns, the latest attempt by a relatively niche fandom to call attention to their cause by advertising to casual fans in highly-visible spots.
Fans supporting the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut hashtag will descend on San Diego wearing t-shirts, paying for billboards and, if past behavior is any indicator, probably asking questions about the cut at DC and Warner Bros. events. The campaign has become long enough and visible enough to compare to the efforts by fans to pressure Warner Bros. into releasing Richard Donner’s cut of Superman II — which they eventually did, but it took about 20 years.
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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.
Fans also took out an ad on a bus stop — a wraparound visual that will be displayed inside and outside of a stop on the route to the convention center.
JL: Snyder Cut promotion in SDCC has started. Money was raised by fans (50% goes to Foundation for Suicide Prevention). There’s a bus stop with Justice League themed art and quotes from people who worked on the movie (photo by Will Rowlands). from r/DC_Cinematic
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. It seems that the best, if not only, chance to see new, Snyder-directed DC content for the foreseeable future would be if Warners releases a the Snyder cut of Justice League — regardless of how long a shot that might be.
