There’s been quite a bit of debate regarding the existence of the Zack Snyder cut of Justice League, though more and more it seems like it actually does exist. The latest confirmation of its existence comes from director Kevin Smith, who says that while he hasn’t actually seen it firsthand, he does know there is an actual cut of the movie that can be viewed that shows Snyder’s vision for the story. Granted, it isn’t finished, but it is viewable, and would probably satisfy all the people that want to see what Snyder had planned for his original version of the film.
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“I’ve not seen it firsthand,” Smith told CinemaBlend’s ReelBlend podcast. “And also to be clear, I know Zack, but it’s not like, ‘We’re f****** tight son!’ … That being said, I’ve spoken now to enough people at various levels in that production. There IS a Snyder cut. For sure. That’s not a mythical beast. It exists. Now, it’s not a finished movie by any stretch of the imagination. There were things that went away from the story that they shot that didn’t wind up going into (visual) effects or anything like that. So I would assume, based on what I’ve been told, that large sections of that Snyder Cut are, you know, pre-viz (with) a lot of green screen. We’re not talking a finished movie. When people hear ‘Snyder Cut’ in their heads, they think about, like, a DVD they’ve seen of an extended cut or something that’s finished. The ‘Snyder Cut’ that, again I haven’t seen, but the one I’ve heard everyone speak of was never a finished film. It was a movie that people in production could watch and fill in the blanks. It was certainly not meant for mass consumption.”
While it is unfinished, Smith thinks releasing it in that form would be fine for what people are looking to the Snyder Cut for. They don’t want a finished movie but instead a look at Snyder’s original vision for the film.
“I feel confident that the audience could handle that cut of the movie without being like… I think there’s a common thought process, probably within the studio – and again, no studio has said this to me, but I would assume that they’re like, ‘We can’t show people this,” Smith said. “Yes, there is a Snyder Cut, but no audience would be able to look at this and see what the director’s intent was.’ I disagree. That would seem like common wisdom because everyone always wants to put their best foot forward. But I think the audience now, particularly the audience that would consume the Snyder Cut and discuss it at great length, can watch a work print. They can watch a work-in-progress and fill in the blanks in their heads.”
“Every studio likes to make money,” Smith said. “They do multiple incarnations of movies on video all the time. This could just be one more of those. All they have to do is lend their audience a little more credence to be like, ‘Look, they’ll get it.’ Put up a bunch of f****** disclaimers, including one from Zack himself at the head of it going, ‘Obviously the movie wasn’t finished, but here’s what we were thinking.’ There’s definitely a way to do it. … They could definitely shoot a version of that flick where, you know, they put [Snyder] into it explaining what would have went here, what went there.”
Smith is definitely on the right track, as I know several fans who would watch that, and hopefully, Warner Bros. sees the value in that proposition as well.
