Zack Snyder Thought it Would Take Two Decades to Share His Justice League Footage

The announcement almost three years in the making officially came today as WarnerMedia announced Zack Snyder’s Justice League will be made available to the public in 2021, streaming exclusively on HBO Max. Fans have been eagerly awaiting such an announcement to the point that it seemed like a far off dream they’d never experience, right along with them though was Zack Snyder himself who said in a new interview he thought the footage from his version wouldn’t debut for decades. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Snyder said: “I always thought it was a thing that in 20 years, maybe somebody would do a documentary and I could lend them the footage, little snippets of a cut no one has ever seen.”

Snyder’s wife and producing partner Deborah added that the current landscape of feature film distribution makes this type of release possible unlike other un-made and un-released films of the past. “With the new platform and streaming services, you can have something like this,” she said. “You can’t release something like this theatrically, but you could with a streaming service. It’s an opportunity that wasn’t there two years ago, to be honest.”

Unmade and unreleased versions of major superhero movies have been the subject of feature-length documentaries before such as the 2015 feature film The Death of “Superman Lives”: What Happened? by the late Jon Schnepp. Detailing the making of and falling apart of the late 90s film from director Tim Burton and writer Kevin Smith, the film offered the first look at star Nicolas Cage in the costume from the cancelled version of the film. Fans also saw the release of Doomed!: The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four that same year, detailing the infamous story of the unreleased Fantastic Four film from 1994.

Unlike those movies, Snyder’s Justice League will be completed and released. At this point if the film will debut on HBO Max as one mega-sized viewing event or split up into chapters, but even Snyder himself is just grateful to have the opportunity and he knows the relentless fan base are to thank for it.

“Clearly this wouldn’t be happening without them,” Snyder said. “This return to that pedigree and to let my singular vision of my movie be realized, in this format, in this length, is unprecedented and a brave move.”

Zack Snyder’s Justice League will be released on HBO Max in 2021.