Joss Whedon Jokes About the Justice League Snyder Cut

As DC film fans are getting even more active than usual on the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut hashtag, [...]

By Russ Burlingame

As DC film fans are getting even more active than usual on the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut hashtag, filmmaker Joss Whedon -- reviled by Snyder fans as the guy who came on and recut the movie to suit the demands of the studio -- is cracking jokes about it on Twitter. In a move that has led to dozens of angry replies and, apparently, a bunch of blocked fans by Whedon, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator responded to a tweet from comics and TV writer Warren Ellis with #ReleaseTheSnyderDaguerreotype, prompting a fast and furious response from Snyder stans who already didn't have much love for Whedon.

Whedon was called in to complete reshoots and edit the film when Snyder left the project following the death of his daughter by suicide. At the time, Snyder said that he had first wanted to throw himself into the work and finish the film, but realized quickly that where he needed to be was with his family. In the years since, he (and "Snyder Cut" stans) have worked closely with suicide prevention charities, generating tens of thousands of dollars and raising a ton of awareness.

You can check out Whedon's tweet below.

There have been rumors -- not discouraged by Snyder himself -- that a version of his cut might eventually be released. Fans have long hoped that HBO Max, AT&T and WarnerMedia's planned streaming service, might feature it. But with millions of people unable to leave home and Hollywood being logistically and economically upended by the impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic, fans are hoping to see it sooner than later.

Snyder's "director's cut," were it ever to be revealed, would be probably the biggest change from one cut to another of basically any major motion picture ever released. For context, it seems like about 90% of the content in Snyder's movie never found its way to theaters, whereas even when Richard Donner did his cut of Superman II for the home video market 20 years after its original theatrical release, the difference was not huge -- in part because Donner was fired from the movie early enough in the production that he did not have all of his shots yet. Snyder, it seems, had a pretty complete movie (plus or minus a few scenes that don't seem intrinsic to the main plot).

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.

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.

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