While the upcoming Super Bowl will not be the same level of advertising bonanza that it has become in recent years — and it especially will not have the same level of buy-in from movie studios, since nobody is quite sure when tentpole releases will be coming back to theaters — streaming platform HBO Max is looking to advertise its upcoming slate of original feature films, including Zack Snyder’s Justice League, during the big game. Streaming services have expanded during the pandemic, while traditional studios and exhibitors have been scrambling to try and figure out a new strategy. As of now, most observers are waiting for a new wave of movie delays following last week’s move to delay No Time to Die.
The report that HBO Max has plans comes from Variety, but they have nothing in the way of concrete details. Other feature films coming to HBO Max in early 2021 include Earwig and the Witch and Locked Down.
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In Zack Snyder’s Justice League, determined to ensure Superman’s (Henry Cavill) ultimate sacrifice was not in vain, Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) aligns forces with Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) with plans to recruit a team of metahumans to protect the world from an approaching threat of catastrophic proportions. The task proves more difficult than Bruce imagined, as each of the recruits must face the demons of their own pasts to transcend that which has held them back, allowing them to come together, finally forming an unprecedented league of heroes. Now united, Batman (Affleck), Wonder Woman (Gadot), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and The Flash (Ezra Miller) may be too late to save the planet from Steppenwolf, DeSaad and Darkseid and their dreadful intentions.
Snyder, who directed Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice for Warner Bros., was tapped to direct Justice League. He departed the picture shortly after his daughter passed away, and at the time, everyone put a brave face on the situation, saying that Snyder had personally selected his good friend Joss Whedon to oversee the film’s completion. It would later come out that Snyder was not involved with the selection of Whedon, who made significant narrative and tonal changes to the film’s original cut, chief among which was trimming the three-hour or so runtime way down to accommodate studio requests. The resultant film was a mess creatively, and turned out to be a critical and commercial bomb. Calls from fans started coming almost immediate to release Zack Snyder‘s cut of the movie — which at the time was little more than the assembly cut filmmakers put together to show investors and executives early in the editing process.
After years of pressure from fans and several layers of management turnover, WarnerMedia announced that Zack Snyder’s Justice League would be the first DC feature film created exclusively for the streaming platform. Since then, fans have been waiting for details, trailers, release dates…and we got some of that today.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League will be available to stream on HBO Max on March 18.