Snyder’s Cut
- Can Taşkent
- Jul 25
- 7 min read
Updated: Aug 5
For those unfamiliar, Marvel and DC are rival comic book companies with their own licensed superheroes. Marvel is generally known for being more "colorful and humorous," while DC is relatively "dark and serious."
Night Shyalaman's movie Unbreakable which was released in 2000 begins with statistics on comic book sales in the United States. The director seemed to be saying, "Look, there's money in this." Indeed, live-action comic book-based films from that era, such as Spider-Man and X-Men, have proven really successful and many became classics in popular culture.
As of 2018, Disney had achieved great success and was earning a good income with the "cinematic universe" it had established with "joint and solo" films featuring Marvel characters. Warner Bros., led by Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan, launched DC's cinematic universe in 2013 with Man of Steel (Superman).
Snyder has a background in music videos, and his visual storytelling is breathtaking. He's also a die-hard comic book enthusiast. Nolan, on the other hand, had directed a more adult-oriented Batman trilogy than his predecessors, and it was a huge success. Snyder got the series off to a strong start with a fantastic cast and Hans Zimmer's original score. Man of Steel had a more realistic and serious tone than previous Superman films. Many DC fans loved the film, grossing $670 million worldwide. Some complained, "Superman didn't smile enough or make any jokes."
WB increased the pressure to compete with Marvel. In 2016, Snyder began expanding the DC universe with Batman v Superman. He based his film on Frank Miller's '80s comic book, which depicts an elderly Batman challenging Superman. Coincidentally, that same year, Marvel was also tackling a similar theme with Civil War.
Snyder's filming, casting choices, and Zimmer's music combined to create a truly magnificent film. It also brought together DC's "trinity" of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman together on the big screen for the first time.
(Fun fact: Turkish Airlines sponsored this film. Wonder Woman boarded our scheduled flight in the film, and the Batmobile crossed the Bosphorus Bridge, which was a big joy for us Turkish fans. But then Turkish Airlines got a big reprimand by the government. If you're curious, do some research.)
Of course, while Marvel had already built its own universe with 12 films at the time, DC's second film, to keep up with the competition, overloaded it with its characters and plot. This was criticized, and Snyder would later release an "ultimate edition" to make the film more accessible.
This film grossed $875 million worldwide, but it also received criticism from some, including "Batman shouldn't kill people" and "Superman doesn't smile." There's also the infamous "Martha" moment, a well-executed detail that played a key role in the film; anyone interested should read about it. The "Superman doesn't smile" type of fans couldn't quite get their heads around it either.
Snyder began filming "Justice League" without slowing down that same year. This film, which would tell the story of DC heroes uniting against a massive threat, counterpart to Marvel's "Avengers," was originally planned as a two-part film. However, Snyder suffered a family tragedy during filming and was forced to withdraw from the project.
At this point, in spite of all the revenue success , WB, for some reason got deeply influenced by the "Superman doesn't smile" type of fans, saw this as an opportunity to fulfill its desire to give future films a Marvel-inspired atmosphere. The task of completing Justice League was assigned to Joss Whedon, a previous Marvel director.
In fact, this strange "discomfort" at WB began to manifest itself during the filming of David Ayer's 2016 Suicide Squad, about a supergroup of DC villains. The black-and-white credits seen in the film's early trailers were revised with neon colors. The studio interfered with the film's entire creative process, resulting in a tonally inconsistent and unbalanced work. Despite this, SS grossed $750 million. Ayer would later disown the film, declaring that it didn't reflect his vision.
With WB's request, Whedon threw away half of the film, which Snyder had largely completed (which we would later find out), and reshot the remaining half. He erased Superman actor Henry Cavill's moustache which he was supporting for another movie with an awful CGI and added numerous shallow, sexist jokes. He shot underskirt poses of Wonder Woman. Gal Gadot was so uncomfortable that she used a stunt double for some scenes. Ben Affleck's discomfort was clearly evident in newly re-shot scenes as Batman. When the film was released in 2017, it received mixed reviews and grossed far less than expected ($660 million). We didn't yet know the full story at the time, but the resulting film frustrated fans by being vastly different from the initial trailers, its inconsistent tone, and its attempt to be funny while degrading our beloved characters.
Affleck was planning to write, direct, and star in the next Batman film, the plot of which was teased in JL's "end credits scene". However, after this frustrating experience, he realized he wouldn't be able to get along with WB management and withdrew from the project entirely. The Batman film would then be released in 2022 as a standalone film out of Snyder's established cinematic universe, later dubbed as the #Snyderverse. Recently, artworks for Affleck's canceled project surfaced, prompting many DC fans to protest on social media, claiming they'd been robbed of the film's potential.
2017's Wonder Woman, still part of Snyder's universe, grossed $824 million, and 2018's Aquaman grossed $1 billion 152 milllion.
Despite all this box office success, WB's management started to distance itself from Snyder's universe, his core characters, and his long-term plan, instead making standalone films featuring lesser-known characters, filled with colorful scenes and slapstick jokes. It reached so far that they did not feature Cavill out of the Shazam end-credits scene, instead they left Superman's head out of the frame. The second installment of Wonder Woman, whose first film was a huge success, lost $30 million due to its overcolorful scenes and embarrassing script.
Ray Fisher, who played Cyborg in Justice League, began speaking out in 2020, risking antagonism from the entire film industry, about how Whedon and WB mistreated the actors on set. Other actors also supported him. The resulting outrage on social media quickly turned into a trend with the hashtag #releasethesnydercut, resulting with Snyder sharing scenes from his own cut, exciting fans. When WB retorted, "that movie doesn't exist," Snyder shared the film reels he had tagged with JL. This unprecedented movement, where fans organize a fight to see the director's true vision, snowballed great action both on social media and in the real world. Ultimately, this global fan resistance miraculously paid off, and WB greenlit the project. Zack Snyder's Justice League, after the CGI process was completed and additional scenes were shot, was released in 2021 on HBO Max, the company's streaming channel.
In the following year, fans' well-deserved joy of receiving the film they deserved after this great struggle would be doubled with receiving the "Oscars Cheer Moment" award for one of ZSJL's scenes at the Academy Awards night.
Interestingly, this wasn't the first time viewers had to organize a fight with WB to be able to watch the original director's cut of a DC movie.
Richard Donner was working on Superman 2, the 1980 sequel to the beloved Superman film he directed in 1978, starring the legendary Christopher Reeve. With filming 80% complete, WB decided to remove Donner from the project. New director Richard Lester reshot a significant portion of the film, making it more colorful and humorous. While the film was a commercial success at the time, it was criticized for putting the script in the background in favour of comedy. In 2004, Facebook was newly launched, and the concept of "social media" wasn't yet fully established, but people had already started organizing themselves through websites. Fans formed an online community to advocate for the release of Donner's original cut, which ultimately caught the attention of WB. Unlike Snyder, Donner didn't have enough material to complete the film, but with WB's guidance, he edited the film to his own vision and released "Superman 2 - The Richard Donner Cut" on DVD in 2006.
The end of ZSJL featured the trailer for Snyder's original plan for the second Justice League, based on the "Injustice," storyline in which Superman falls under the influence of DC's most notorious villain, Darkseid. Snyder fans, flush with success, turned the #releasethesnydercut trend into an effort to get Snyder to complete his cinematic universe, this time under the hashtag #restorethesnyderverse.
That same year, WB commissioned James Gunn, who also has a background in Marvel and was previously fired by Disney for his pedophilia jokes on social media, to direct a new Suicide Squad film that served as a sequel to the first Suicide Squad, but also felt like a remake. Filled with cheesy characters and downright childish jokes, this film, despite grossing 167 million euros on a cost of 185 million, must have pleased WB management, as Gunn was appointed head of DC Films in 2022.
This transition process within the leadership was also a painful one. Everyone at WB had a different opinion on the future of the DC cinematic universe. Cavill's "cameo" in the post-credits scene of Black Adam, released in October 2022, heralded his return to the role of Superman, exciting fans. Gunn, however, had different plans. Less than two months later, Cavill posted on social media, "I spoke with J. Gunn, and it turns out I'm not returning."
This put the final nail on the coffin for Snyder universe, which had already been thoroughly shattered. In 2023's The Flash, they relied heavily on nostalgic fan service, representing Cavill's Superman with terrible CGI, showing the Flash with a missing tooth and Aquaman lying on the street wasted. Blue Beetle, which tried hart to be "woke" but was filled with shallow clichés, lost $25 million. And the last film connected to the Snyder universe ended with a supposedly "funny" scene where Aquaman's brother, the ruler of the seas tasted a cockroach with his hamburger.
With Gunn, WB has embarked on a new cinematic universe. The first film in the series is the recently released Superman, which Gunn directed with an entirely new cast. This film is a crucial test for Gunn, who promises a colorful, cheerful, and hopeful Superman as opposed to Snyder's "dark" world.
The trailers, which started to be released in 2024, have highlighted the irresistable super dog in hopes of ensuring success, relying on John Williams' iconic music for Christopher Reeve's films from the 1980s. He also did not miss to copy Snyder extensively along the way.
The movie was recently released and as of now, the general audience seems to have enjoyed the new Superman film and gave Gunn the green light to move on.
Snyder fans, however, see the film as a significant downgrade from its predecessors in terms of acting, design, editing, direction, CGI, and costumes. But most importantly, they cannot forgive WB management's poor treatment of these classic characters and their actors, whom they have devoted themselves to in recent years. They lament the loss of so many great films, finding solace in MoS, BvS, and especially ZSJL, which they have deservedly received.
Despite everything, the hope of #restorethesnyderverse stays strong among Snyder fans.
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