Justice League (Zack Snyder, November 17, 2017) Movie • Page 68

What are the chances this does well and WB allows Snyder to continue this story with future films and Affleck comes back as Batman. 5%?

 

Well, the DC film universe seems to make decisions designed to cause me the most anguish possible, so I would peg it at closer to 65%.

 

Off the top of my head I can't really think of an analogous film, where a movie was released, then a couple years later, reshot and edited to mix new footage with old footage. In that sort of sense, I'm actually kind of interested in how it might turn out, except that it's Zack Snyder. Which is really the craziest part of all of this: there is a long list of filmmakers who deserve impassioned defenders and movements to let them make the work they want to make. Snyder is near the bottom of people who should have earned that kind of good will, except I think his stuff really appeals to adult men who still think like 15 year old boys, and they like to get very loud on the internet.

 

I would say there's 0 chance the Snyder Cut is good or successful enough to justify greenlighting more DCEU continuation from him, but I was wrong about this ever getting released so who knows.

 

Snyder is one of those people who I just can't understand how they even got their career in the first place, let alone how they still have one.

 

Honestly, I don't like Snyder, but now that it's real, I find myself really happy for him.

There were reports in the aftermath of this film's release that the studio was already fighting Snyder before his daughter's death, which that article seems to confirm. Which, if I were in charge of DC, I would've pushed in a different direction, too. But, I always felt so bad for him that he lost a child to suicide, & then as a cherry on top, lost control of his creative baby (misguided & mediocre as it may have been) in the aftermath. All so the WB execs could have the director of Avengers cobble together a vanilla attempt at a crowd pleaser, to be dropped in that calendar year allegedly for, like, studio exec bonuses or something? (Forget the specifics.)

As for the reshoots talk... It sounds like a lot was already shot. Solo was infamously significantly reshot after Lord & Miller left, & Trank recently talked about how a lot of Fant4stic's scenes had both his version & the studio's version shot. I really think Snyder has most of the raw footage needed, & mostly just needs finished effects, ADR, edited, etc. Which, is still very expensive. But, I don't think they're gonna reshoot, like, half a movie's worth of material. Probably just some small stuff here & there.

(Which, before reading that article, I would've thought maybe pieces of what Whedon shot could be edited & used, like how the Donner cut of Superman 2 uses pieces of the theatrical version that Donner didn't shoot. But, kinda sounds like he wouldn't wanna use any of that, if it can be helped.)

 

DotD and 300 were both relatively well received and pretty successful. I think Watchmen was underwhelming financially but still well received at the time.

 

Watchmen (the movie) sucks. So does 300.

 

Haven't seen the movie since it came out. I just remember it "looking cool" when I was in high school. At least Watchmen (the show) is great.

 

300 isn’t very good (I liked it when I was 14) but it made a lot of money. The trajectory of his career makes sense

 

Dawn of the Dead is good though

 

Going from the flop of Sucker Punch to Man of Steel is questionable but not unheard of, and I’m sure he still had good will from the success of his first couple movies.

Side note: I was on such a Mad Men high that I saw Sucker Punch in theaters purely because Jon Hamm was in it. I was very disappointed.

 

I remember trying to watch Sucker Punch on tv once and didn't know what the hell was going on. Could not hold my attention.

Just saw on IMDB that there's a drama called Fountainhead listed in his upcoming movies and hmmm look at this description ha.

 

lmao of course he’s adapting The Fountainhead

 

It's been his dream project since before Justice League I remember hearing. Makes sense, Man of Steel has a slightly Rand-ian outlook

 

Snyder making an Ayn Rand film would make perfect sense, unfortunately, lol. Surprised in retrospect that he didn't put the Question in any of his DC work.

Maybe some day he'll get the rights to the late Steve Ditko's Mr. A & finally make his dream objectivist superhero film.

 

Another reason it makes sense is that, much like Ayn Rand, Snyder sucks

 

We get it you think he sucks

 

i don't like snyder either but amidst all this dogshit i feel happy for him that he got another chance to work on JL after the tragedy he faced midway in

 

I’ve mentioned it before, but as a general human being I like Zack Snyder. I got to work on Batman v Superman and when you’ve worked with a monster of a person like Michael Bay on the Transformers movies, which seeps into the pores of every department on set as the misery spreads like the plague, Snyder’s kindness was a breath of fresh air. I am positive that has a lot to do with the work he gets. I will never forget the night in Detroit during an absolute torrential downpour when the PAs were huddled together outside watching the trucks as crew members wrapped out inside. Zack Snyder comes rolling around in a cart, takes one look at the PAs in the cold rain, and yells to a group of crew members standing nearby, “Hey guys, can you help me set a tent up for my PA friends here?” The crew look startled to see it’s Zack and they rush to help him carry it over to the PAs. He finishes setting it up and then begins to chat with the cold, wet, and very tired PAs, asking them their names, where they come from, what are their favorite movies, etc. He cracks jokes with them and there’s a genuine warmth there. I’m standing there wondering “who is this kind soul?” I’ll never forget the time I was standing in an alleyway where the lighting crew was scrambling to pull a light back from falling over the edge of a building and Zack came over just to chat with me while we watched, like he was talking with a friend he knew really well and wasn’t the director of a multi-million dollar picture. Or when he was walking with a group of Producers during lunch and told them he was stepping away to go eat, and then walked into the PA trailer and sat and talked with us while we ate. I’d watch him ride around on a skateboard from setup to setup checking in and he was just a big, happy kid.

And that’s why it absolutely broke my heart hearing about his daughter. I wish I liked his films and style more than I do, but I’ll always respect him as a person. I agree with Tim when he mentioned the idea of Snyder’s stylistic direction being paired with the proper screenwriter and editors. Under the right circumstances and guidance I do believe he could make something special.

 

Well, I did it. I watched Batman v Superman for the first time since 2016.

I still have my same basic “Goyer is bad,” “Terrio is bad,” “it’s too much story too soon,” “needs some actual Superman-ing,” “bad cornerstone for a cinematic universe,” “ugly Doomsday,” etc., thoughts.

But, I do have a couple modest complimentary observations to make.

One, now that I’m burnt out on cinematic universes as a concept that every superhero film needs hammered into, I do wish something generally like this (except, y’know, actually good) could exist as just its own thing. Like, what if Snyder got to make his own “Black Label” “Elseworlds” films, three to four years between ‘em, & you could get completely unrelated films in between? You should be able to just make a comic book movie that’s just a comic book movie. That’ll forever be the biggest loss in Disney overtaking all of Marvel outside of a fraction of Spider-Man.

Two, in a version of this movie that’s not written by Terrio & Goyer, not planting seeds for Justice League, etc., I think I now like the idea of it ending w/ Doomsday killing Superman. The only problem is that they don’t show too little Superman being Superman (does he smile in costume at all?) & too much of him being aggro. And, in this case I’m actually not even talking just about my opinion of the character. On a storytelling level, there’s something there w/ Lex wanting to show the world the truth about Superman, not realizing that the truth is that he’s a hero to the end. If you take out the planted seeds for the future & just make this a stand alone story about a Superman who died, that’s a pretty great Superman story. But, it’s undermined by him doing a worse job of trying to not fight Batman here than even Frank Miller did it in Dark Knight Returns. Make him desperate to not fight there.

So much more that can be said, & has been, but those two particular areas are ones I had new thoughts on, so yeah.

 

lmao BvS makes a lot more sense now that I know Snyder is into Ayn Rand

 

This is entirely unprecedented right? Has anything like this ever happened before?

 

I was going to say Ridley Scott's 25 year campaign to release the proper Blade Runner cut, but even then this will have more being spent/going into it than that

 

With the worst-for-Superman film BvS fresh in my mind, I do agree w/ this take. His Clark is significantly more masculine in the way you'd expect from a Snyder film, his Superman likewise gets too aggro, & the stories lend themselves to more moping than joy. But, even at the most anti-Donner-fied, Cavill does feel like someone who watched those films for inspiration. (Which, who wouldn't?)

I'd contrast this w/ Routh, who in Superman Returns really was playing Reeve-playing-Superman, not Superman himself. I'd blame that on Singer more than Routh (certainly far from the worst thing one can pin on Singer!), based on how much the film is trying to be a new Superman 3 & how much better Routh was in those CW Crisis clips I've seen.

I know we've had this conversation many times, & the popular opinion is already that Cavill is good in spite of what he's been given, lol. But, I was already in a "thinking about Snyder's DC" mode, & I love Evan "Doc" Shaner, who draws great superheroes & is a great Superman fan.