JUSTICE LEAGUE "Snyder Cut" Almost Didn't Happen After Director Clashed With Warner Bros. Over Green Lantern

Much to the delight of #ReleaseTheSnyderCut fans, Zack Snyder's Justice League arrived on HBO Max in March. However, the whole thing was nearly called off after clashes about Green Lantern's cameo...

By JoshWilding - Jun 07, 2021 02:06 AM EST

Filed Under: Justice League

Much to the delight of many comic book fans, Zack Snyder's Justice League was finally released on HBO Max earlier this year. Since then, the #RestoreTheSnyderVerse movement has gained some traction, though it's become clear that Warner Bros. has little interest in continuing the filmmaker's vision.

We knew that Snyder continued to clash with the studio while putting the finishing touches to the "Snyder Cut," but it's now come to light that the whole thing was nearly called off due to disagreements over Green Lantern. The director cast little-known actor Wayne T. Carr as John Stewart, but Warner Bros. put its foot down and that final scene with Bruce Wayne was reshot (during last year's reshoots) with Martian Manhunter.

Talking to YouTuber Tyrone Magnus, Snyder recalled his latest battle with the studio.

"When we had this fight, I was like, 'Guys, I don't understand. We have this whole thing of the Multiverse, who cares?'" Snyder said. "I just think the right end of this movie is John Stewart, that's the correct ending to happen. By the way, I don't want to take anything away from Harry and away from Martian Manhunter, because it's cool. Seeing him early and then seeing him at the end, its cool, it kind of completes his story. But it was always my intent to have John Stewart [meet Batman]."

"Even if there's no other movies, it would make sense for the movies to come that John Stewart would say, 'The Green Lantern Corps is going to come to fight with you against Darkseid because we need to do that. You guys aren't gonna make it without us. We're powerful allies in this,'" he continued. "To me, it was like a no-brainer. But it was a very serious fight that I was in."

Believe it or not, things got so heated that the Snyder Cut was very nearly called off altogether. "To me, it wasn't worth doing it to Wayne, like blowing up the whole movie — because it was that close — over it. And then have everyone be like, or have Wayne feel like, 'Oh shit, I canceled the whole movie because Snyder wouldn't budge.' And I just felt like, 'Okay, [frick] it. I'm gonna just [let it go].' And Wayne was great in the thing."

In many respects, it doesn't really make sense that Warner Bros. would stop Snyder from using John Stewart. However, it's entirely possible the studio didn't want those extremely vocal #ReleaseTheSnyderCut fans overshadowing the actor they eventually chose to play the character on screen.

Do you think Green Lantern should have been included in Zack Snyder's Justice League?

Click on the "Next" button below to see the 10 worst changes
Joss Whedon made to Zack Snyder's Justice League!

10. The Flash's Faceplant

We didn't know this at the time, but this throwaway gag in Justice League was one of the most controversial additions to the film back in 2017. Gal Gadot refused to shoot this scene, as did her stunt double, and that led to Whedon locking the latter in her dressing room and threatening her career.

As you might expect, neither woman wanted to be part of a sequence that ended with the Flash's face planted in Diana Prince's chest, but for Whedon, this was an essential addition.

Even without knowing the backstory, everything about this scene sucked.

It's creepy, weird, and a moment Whedon actually rehashed after having Bruce Banner fall into Black Widow's heaving bosom in the exact same way in 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron.

9. Taunting Diana Prince

Wonder Woman talking to Bruce Wayne after their battle with Superman was a strange addition to the film and seemed to be there only to tease a possible romance between the two heroes.

Snyder did the same thing when they were researching the League together, albeit in a much more subtle fashion (which is surprising considering who we're talking about). Regardless, Whedon's version wasn't too offensive.

A bigger issue in the 2017 cut of Justice League was the way Batman taunted Diana over the death of Steve Trevor decades earlier. This just seemed unnecessary in a film that had a two-hour runtime.

There was no need for Bruce to take that shot or for Diana to emasculate him; it feels like this was Whedon's way of criticising how Wonder Woman had been portrayed in previous DC films.

8. Injustice League

Jesse Eisenberg once denied being involved in Justice League's reshoots, but the Snyder Cut confirmed those theories that he had, in fact, reshot his half of Lex Luthor's conversation with Deathstroke.

Whereas that scene was once meant to set the stage for The Batman, Warner Bros. - on the outs with Ben Affleck at this stage - clearly realised they should probably change it to something else. As a result, Whedon came up with an idea that was meant to tee up a Justice League sequel (talk about optimism).

It's unclear how much thought Whedon and studio execs gave to that follow-up, but rather than focusing on Darkseid, it was clearly meant to pit the Justice League against Luthor's Injustice League.

Lex creating a "League of our own" is all sorts of dumb, and would have felt very random had that sequel happened.

7. Steppenwolf's Defeat

By now, you don't need us to tell you that Whedon decided to completely change Steppenwolf's appearance in his cut of Justice League, likely because that design was considerably cheaper to animate than the intricate version Snyder dreamed up.

Ultimately, the biggest change was how the villain was beaten by the League.

In the Snyder Cut, the team came together to overpower Steppenwolf and didn't hesitate to kill him (Aquaman skewered him with his trident, and Wonder Woman proceeded to chop his head off). Perhaps that was too dark for a studio looking for a Marvel Studios-style take on the League, but the way Whedon's defeat was handled...to call it dumb would be an understatement.

Overcome with fear after facing the team, he's carried back to Apokolips and that's the end of that. It was lame, and clearly meant as a way to move on from Darkseid as a villain.

6. Danny Elfman's Score

We love Danny Elfman's work, particularly in the world of superheroes. Unfortunately, the composer didn't have much time to come up with a unique spin on these characters, and his score very much faded into the background.

There was nothing particularly impressive about it, and the decision to reuse Batman and Superman's classic scores felt clunky and wholly inappropriate when those pieces of music were designed for very different iterations of these characters.

Junkie XL's Justice League score was pretty much finished when Whedon took over, so why the director didn't use that and work with the musician is impossible to say.

It's possible Warner Bros. thought that Elfman would bring the lighter tone to proceedings that they so desperately wanted but more likely that Whedon again wanted to make this movie his own (he worked with Elfman on Avengers: Age of Ultron).

5. Superman's Hideous Face

In some respects, this was out of Whedon's control, particularly as Paramount Pictures was unwilling to allow Henry Cavill to shave off his facial hair for Justice League's reshoots.

How the director or Warner Bros. could be on board with those finished effects is anyone's guess, but even more confusing is why Whedon found it necessary to reshoot so many of Superman's scenes. Almost nothing that Snyder filmed with Superman made it into the 2017 film, a crazy decision when Whedon chose to add lines about how Clark smelled and make him a total goofball.

Nearly everything we saw from Superman in the final battle was superfluous, and simple ADR could have lightened up the Man of Steel for the theatrical cut.

Whedon, and Geoff Johns, likely felt a need to reinvent the character in their own image, which just so happened to involve some horrendous visual effects. And yes, you can count that weird cell phone footage in this entry.

4. Goofy News Report

We'll never know whether Snyder really did plan to always reveal that it was Martian Manhunter disguised as Martha Kent in his take on this scene. However, even if that weird reveal was only included to validate online fan theories, the non-Martian Mahunter version of this conversation can't have been as bad as this.

Snyder chose to make light of Steppenwolf's invasion by having that S.T.A.R. Labs janitor's wife let loose a foul-mouthed tirade on the news about her missing husband being "f***ing probed."

This dumb, juvenile humor added nothing to Justice League, and only served as a distraction in a scene that completely eliminated Lois Lane's pregnancy and her decision to leave The Daily Planet.

Full of heavy-handed, clunky dialogue, this whole thing was just plain rotten.

3. "Tell Me, Do You Bleed?"

Whedon brought a lot of humor into the MCU with his Avengers films, but that was completely absent in his cut of Justice League. Perhaps this team doesn't suit jokes as well as Earth's Mightiest Heroes, but the director sure did deliver a lot of clangers in the 2017 film.

Superman dropped a bunch of crappy one-liners in the final act, while a bruised and bloodied Batman limping away from that fight with the Man of Steel was maximum cringe.

The worst offender, however, was Superman asking the Dark Knight, "Tell me, do you bleed?" Well, he's a regular human man being throttled by an alien powerhouse who has just been resurrected, so something tells us he probably does bleed.

To be fair, this was a throwback to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, but we'd happily place money on Whedon including it as a meta-joke at Snyder's expense.

2. The Russian Family

For some reason, a bunch of people still live near the abandoned town Steppenwolf sets up shop in, and Superman and the Flash end up spending most of the final act rescuing them.

The Man of Steel belittles the Scarlet Speedster's effort by carrying an entire building to safety (which was goofy), but this was blatantly included as a heavy-handed way of showing that the Justice League is, in fact, a team of superheroes.

Because, you know, saving the world just isn't enough.

Whedon may have written these scenes, but it feels like studio execs got involved here and decided that these characters needed to be portrayed in a certain way...a way that had nothing to do with Snyder's vision for the DCEU. It's just petty, and one of the worst parts of a very bad film.

1. Superman's Race With The Flash

As post-credits scenes go, this isn't terrible.

Superman racing the Flash is one of those iconic moments from the comics...that's now been done to death. Seriously, it's more lame than epic at this stage, and felt wholly tacked on in Whedon's cut of Justice League. After all, we didn't even get to see who won, so what the heck was the point?

Clark Kent has returned from the dead, and his first priority is to race Barry Allen? There was nothing that laid the groundwork for this moment, and it instead felt like another way for Whedon to take a shot of the Flash (a character it seems he really doesn't like).

We're sure some fans were excited to see this on screen, but they're surely in the minority, right?

Zack Snyder Says REBEL MOON - PART 2's Last Supper Scene Was Originally Conceived For JUSTICE LEAGUE Sequel

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251 Comments

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

BuzzKillington - 6/7/2021, 2:57 AM

They didn't want you to contaminate and ruin another high profile character even though it would have been a short cameo.

MarDCel - 6/7/2021, 2:58 AM

@BuzzKillington - indeed

Kumkani - 6/7/2021, 3:03 AM

Neither a Green Lantern nor Martian Manhunter cameo would have been earned.

Spock0Clock - 6/7/2021, 3:21 AM

I don't know if I really believe him here that it could have ended the project, but I hate the idea that Snyder or WB cared so much about this scene when it was literally one of the least important scenes in the entire movie. Just a pointless sequel tease for a movie that will not get sequels.

Chewtoy - 6/7/2021, 5:46 AM

@Spock0Clock - I can definitely see such overblown importance from Snyder’s side, as he seems to be a very poor judge of which moments and actions in his films should be treated as monumental, story-wise, and which are trivial.

As for the WB, if true, then I can only guess that they didn’t want the headache of seeming to promise Jon Stewart if they were as-yet undecided on what they wanted to do next with the Green Lantern property and didn’t want to be boxed in with it having to be Stewart or else dealing with more racial complaints as with likes of Fisher.

WakandanQueen - 6/7/2021, 3:27 AM

Since when does this filmmaker care about what makes sense

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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JUSTICE LEAGUE "Snyder Cut" Almost Didn't Happen After Director Clashed With Warner Bros. Over Green Lantern

Much to the delight of #ReleaseTheSnyderCut fans, Zack Snyder's Justice League arrived on HBO Max in March. However, the whole thing was nearly called off after clashes about Green Lantern's cameo...

10. The Flash's Faceplant

9. Taunting Diana Prince

8. Injustice League

7. Steppenwolf's Defeat

6. Danny Elfman's Score

5. Superman's Hideous Face

4. Goofy News Report

3. "Tell Me, Do You Bleed?"

2. The Russian Family

1. Superman's Race With The Flash

Zack Snyder Says REBEL MOON - PART 2's "Last Supper" Scene Was Originally Conceived For JUSTICE LEAGUE Sequel

JUSTICE LEAGUE Director Zack Snyder Says He's "Pretty Excited" About James Gunn's DCU Plans

JUSTICE LEAGUE Director Zack Snyder Says He's "Pretty Excited" About James Gunn's DCU Plans

JUSTICE LEAGUE Director Zack Snyder Open To Making Animated Sequels; Believes Some DC Fans Are "Brainwashed"

Henry Cavill Jokes (We Think) That His JUSTICE LEAGUE Mustache "Nearly Ruined My Career"

JUSTICE LEAGUE Director Zack Snyder Says He's "Pretty Excited" About James Gunn's DCU Plans

JUSTICE LEAGUE Director Zack Snyder Open To Making Animated Sequels; Believes Some DC Fans Are "Brainwashed"

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