The #SnyderCut
let's (unfortunately) talk about Zack Snyder
Often times in this world, things are divided into two categories like; people who like grape jelly and people who like strawberry jelly, people who like olives and people who are wrong, people who think Zack Snyder movies are bad and people who think Zack Snyder movies are peak cinema, and finally, people who are Extremely Online™️(me, weird, absolutely broken brain) and those who are not (you, cool, normal and fun brain).
Sometimes, on Twitter dot com, these groupings overlap on a subject or two. Usually, it’s an annoying thing for a day, sometimes two, before the discourse pitters out. And then, sometimes, it lasts for 4 goddam years.
If you’re like me (logged on on the time) you probably range from “familiar” to “knowledgable” on the subject of The Snyder Cut (officially Titled ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE). This edition of the newsletter is for people who are not as online. The people who have only vaguely heard of the Snyder Cut or have no idea what that means. The words might as well be foreign. If that’s you, please know that I envy you. Unfortunately for you, in this issue of Working Title, I’m going to let you experience a small taste of what it’s like to be online and talk about this certain piece of… film? art? psyop? It’s going to be more of a CliffNotes, but I think the story is informative of moviegoing culture and its history and a lot of people are going to watch The Snyder Cut when it premiers on HBO MAX next weekend. Having some context might add some enjoyment to your viewing or at least help you understand why a movie that has seemingly no real point existing is premiering on a massive streaming service in the year 2021.
A couple of things.
This newsletter is not going to be used to shit on Zack Snyder. He’s a polarizing director and the discourse around him, through no fault of his own, is usually insanely hyperbolic. I don’t really want to do that here. I just want to lay out a rough roadmap of how this particular movie came to exist. You are free to form your own opinions about Zack Snyder and his films. I certainly have mine. In a world filled with artists who turn out to be jerks or creeps, by all accounts, Zack Snyder seems like a nice person.
There are a couple more pieces on this subject that pretty in-depth and that I recommend. One is here from Vanity Fair and the other is over at The Ringer. If you’re interested in learning more, give those a click.
Now, let’s get to The Snyder Cut. But to do that, we have to go back a few years.
In 2013, a movie called MAN OF STEEL was released by Warner Bros into the nation’s cineplexes. MAN OF STEEL was the first movie in what is known as the DC Expanded Universe (DCEU) and was DC/Warner Brothers planting their stake in the ground to try and compete with the insanely popular Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). In 2010, DC and Warner Bros were still cruising on the goodwill and success of Christopher Nolan’s THE DARK KNIGHT. 2 years later, Marvel released THE AVENGERS, which at the time, was the highest-grossing movie of all time (It has since been surpassed by AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR and AVENGERS: ENDGAME). Nolan finished up his Batman obligations with THE DARK KNIGHT RISES and DC/WB knew they needed to look ahead to the next chapter. Enter Zack Snyder.
Even if you don’t know anything about The Snyder Cut, you’ve most likely heard of one of Zack Snyder’s movies and by 2010 he proved himself a distinct, if not polarizing, director. He emerged in 2004 with an incredibly gory remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD, followed up by the insanely popular Persian War epic 300 (a movie that was EVERYWHERE in 2006/2007), and then the superhero subversion and bombast of WATCHMEN in 2009. Each of these films had Snyder’s particular dark, moody stamp and in 2012 DC and WB decided that he was their guy.
The result was MAN OF STEEL, and while it was not particularly well-received, and in some cases, downright disliked, it cleared $668 million at the global box office, allowing Snyder to make the follow-up, 2016’s BATMAN VS SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE. As the name implies, this film sets up the DCEU’s Avengers-like team-up movie THE JUSTICE LEAGUE. While DAWN OF JUSTICE cleared well over $800 million at the box office, it was pretty much universally hated by critics and left a lot of moviegoers with a bad taste in their mouths, myself included. I remember leaving my screening and thinking that I was pretty much done with the DCEU, which was a shame because Batman is my favorite superhero and I genuinely wanted to like the DCEU films, but it was getting harder to do that. Both of Snyder’s Superman movies were dark and gritty, flying in the face of Marvel’s quick quips and somewhat more sunny look at world-ending events. This choice seemed to be one that Snyder was making intentionally and it certainly carried his trademark style, but at a certain point, it becomes exhausting.
Warner Bros clearly felt the same way and the reports coming out after DAWN OF JUSTICE were that DC and WB were losing their faith in Snyder heading into JUSTICE LEAGUE. They assigned watchdogs to essentially babysit him, one from each company, with a rule that one of them had to be on set at all times during the making of the film.
Then, in the middle of filming, Snyder’s family suffered an unthinkable tragedy when his 20-year-old daughter Autumn took her own life. He returned to work for a spell, but eventually, he exited the film entirely, taking a laptop that contained his version of the movie sans any visual effects, sound mixing, and the other big things that make a movie a movie with him. WB needed someone to finish the film, so they turned to Joss Whedon, the architect of the first two Avenger films. Most fans thought Whedon was there to help clean up the postproduction, but instead, WB and DC asked him to extensively rewrite and reshoot the film, with the underlying message seeming to be “make it like Marvel without being Marvel.”
The result is a truly bad film, there’s no way around it. JUSTICE LEAGUE stinks. It’s not good. It’s somehow way too long, but also way too short. It drags where it should burst and rushes through things that need more time and exposition. Another important aspect was that not only was JUSTICE LEAGUE a critical failure, but it was also (by superhero movie standards) a commercial one as well, grossing less than both previous films. DC had lost even its most loyal fans. Over the last year, it has also come to light that Joss Whedon created toxic and sexist work environments, not only on set of JUSTICE LEAGUE but on previous works like Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel leaving an even more sour taste around the film.
After the release of Whedon’s JUSTICE LEAGUE, Zack Snyder’s ardent supporters began to raise the call for his version and vision of the film. They started a petition that garnered 180,000 signatures and took their cause online with the rallying cry of #ReleaseTheSnyderCut. There was a genuine movement for this film to see the light of day. I never rallied around the hashtag or signed the petition, but I have to admit I was curious as to what Snyder’s version of the film looked like. Warner Bros was initially mum, refusing to reveal if an actual version of Snyder’s vision existed, but all sorts of clues, Instagram posts, and YouTube clips seemed to point to yes, there was a Snyder Cut.
Unfortunately, the online component that was helpful in spreading the Gospel of the Snyder Cut was also what gained it its infamy. Snyder fans began to bully those who spoke out against any of Snyder’s works and were so bad they bullied one DC executive into deleting her Twitter account. The toxic component of Snyder’s fandom (something he has been somewhat unfairly maligned for) remains, occasionally rearing its head. #SnyderCut became a shorthand on Twitter for a man online who’s made about superheroes and there were plenty of articles deriding fanboy culture and toxic masculinity. (It should be noted that Snyder’s fans helped raise $500,000 for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention through various efforts). It also continued to gain traction, despite the toxicity of some in the movement. It received support from almost the entire cast, with Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, and Ray Fisher all tweeting the actual hashtag on the 2 year anniversary of JUSTICE LEAGUE. It all seemed headed to a tipping point.
That leads us to next weekend and the premiere of The Snyder Cut, something that just three years ago Warner Brothers wouldn’t even admit existed. Now, not only does it exist, but it’s a $70 million, 4 hour (!!!!) film that will be beamed directly into people’s homes if they have HBO MAX, which a lot of people do.
This can be seen as a victory for Snyder and his fans, who long held out hope that this movie would someday come to fruition. I don’t necessarily see it that way, although I will certainly watch the movie out of sheer curiosity. I see this as more of a warning, a cautionary tale. With a couple of exceptions, The Snyder Cut has no real precedent and no one will ever talk about the movie without the accompanying discussion about its online discourse because they two go hand in hand. Fans are starting to think they can demand things and studios are starting to give them more hope that not only are they right, but also that they’ll have more opportunities to direct film content in the future. We can look at Kelly - Marie Tran’s exclusion from THE RISE OF SKYWALKER, something that only came about due to an EXTREMELY xenophobic and sexist online reaction to her appearance in THE LAST JEDI. Both of these things further complicate an already complicated conversation around superhero movies and IP and what movies are or aren’t.
It’s unknown what the lasting effects of this movie will be and the movie industry is in an already peculiar place. For better or for worse, The Snyder Cut is landing smack dab in the middle of it all.
ZACK SNYDER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE aka The Snyder Cut premieres Thursday, March 18th on HBO MAX.