Actor Ray Porter, who recently confirmed his role as Darkseid in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, says he “absolutely” hopes to realize the director’s original vision in a Justice League 2 and beyond. Before the tyrannical Apokolips ruler and master of Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds) was cut from the version of Justice League completed by Joss Whedon, Darkseid was envisioned by Snyder as the lead villain in a multi-movie arc bringing the superhero team — Batman (Ben Affleck), Superman (Henry Cavill), Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Cyborg (Ray Fisher) and Flash (Ezra Miller) — into an apocalyptic hellscape triggered by the death of Lois Lane (Amy Adams).
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Asked on the LightCast podcast if he would work with Snyder a second time or return as Darkseid in a Snyder-directed Justice League sequel, Porter replied, “If Zack Snyder asked me to stand in a phone booth holding some embarrassing personal product and talk about it in a Shakespearean voice I would do it. I would work with Zack any damn time, any damn where.”
“You meet him, you meet Deborah [Snyder, producer], it’s really easy to understand,” Porter added. “It was a very short amount of time after getting to know them, I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I’d go into battle for you.’ Absolutely.”
In 2019, the Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice director expanded on original Justice League plans that would have served as payoff for the “Knightmare” sequence depicted in Batman v Superman.
Snyder explained in part, “We would end up in the distant future where Darkseid has taken over Earth, and where Superman has succumbed to the Anti-Life [Equation]. And there were a few members of the Justice League that survived to that world, and they were fighting, Batman and a broken half of Cyborg — there’s only half of him because of whatever happened — they were working on an equation to jump back to tell Bruce [during Batman v Superman]… those were the things that we were dealing with.”
Explaining a time-travelling Flash referring to Clark Kent’s partner Lois as “the key,” Snyder added, “If Lois died, Superman would succumb to the Anti-Life, right? And Superman knew that somehow it was Bruce’s responsibility to protect Lois, he would’ve been mad at him in [Batman v Superman], and that’s why he says, ‘She was my world, and you took her from me.’”
Porter’s role as Darkseid will be restored in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, described by the filmmaker as an “entirely new” experience. After Snyder first announced the Snyder Cut, releasing exclusively on HBO Max in 2021, it was reported this new version of Justice League could be divvied up into a six-chapter mini-series or released as a four-hour director’s cut.
