On Saturday, director Zack Snyder released a trailer for his infamous Snyder Cut of Justice League at DC Fandome, a virtual convention of sorts for all things DC Comics and Entertainment.
The Snyder Cut trailer shows off unseen Justice League footage and Darkseid
The four-hour film will arrive in 2021 with plenty of previously unseen footage, Snyder confirmed.
Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness and skin care. He came to Vox in 2014. Prior to that, he worked at The Atlantic.
The film’s four-hour runtime will be broken up into four hour-long parts, Snyder said during a livestream from the Fandome event. The trailer reconfirmed that the Snyder Cut will debut on HBO Max sometime in 2021.
The trailer uses Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” atop a montage of scenes not seen in the original Justice League. The biggest of all was the first full appearance of what appears to be Darkseid, the major comic book villain who was notably teased in the film. We also see glimpses of cut moments, like the death of Cyborg’s dad, Wonder Woman receiving the signal from the Amazons, and Superman in his infamous black suit.
Back in May, Warner Bros. announced that it would release the Snyder Cut on HBO Max in 2021 — four or so years after the original Justice League movie hit theaters in November 2017. The fight to have it released spans just as long.
Snyder left the Justice League project just before the film’s originally planned reshoots, and was replaced as director by Joss Whedon. Snyder later said his exit was so that he could deal with the death of his daughter. (There are reports that dispute this, and claim that Snyder was fired much earlier, however.)
Snyder’s departure from the film sparked a theory that the movie Snyder would have made if he’d seen it through to the end would have been better than the critical and box office disappointment the theatrical release of Justice League turned out to be.
Whispers of a possible Snyder Cut began soon after Justice League hit theaters. The movie that we got, according to Snyder’s biggest fans, is a twisted, gnarled, ignorant work that was hindered by outside forces that extinguished Snyder’s true vision. That fabled, unseen “true” version of Justice League was quickly dubbed the “Snyder Cut,” and Snyder’s loudest defenders started a social media hashtag campaign with one demand: “Release the #SnyderCut.”
For years, the Snyder Cut existed only in rumors and teases. But the hashtag campaign churned along and kept the faith. It reached a peak in December 2019, when Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot and ex-Batman Ben Affleck both tweeted support for the cut’s release — amplifying the volume surrounding it. Snyder himself had also recently teased its release, posting stills on the social media platform Vero. At the same time, Warner Bros. insiders had downplayed both its possible release and even existence.
The HBO Max announcement confirmed that a Snyder Cut had somehow been assembled, but didn’t specify what form it would take. With the trailer revealing cut scenes, one of the last unknowns is when in 2021 Snyder’s version will premiere.
New goal: 25,000
In the spring, we launched a program asking readers for financial contributions to help keep Vox free for everyone, and last week, we set a goal of reaching 20,000 contributors. Well, you helped us blow past that. Today, we are extending that goal to 25,000. Millions turn to Vox each month to understand an increasingly chaotic world — from what is happening with the USPS to the coronavirus crisis to what is, quite possibly, the most consequential presidential election of our lifetimes. Even when the economy and the news advertising market recovers, your support will be a critical part of sustaining our resource-intensive work — and helping everyone make sense of an increasingly chaotic world. Contribute today from as little as $3.
