San Diego Comic-Con might be, well, at home this year, but Zack Snyder’s skipped the virtual line ” and even the official event ” altogether to join with a group of fans in celebration of the director finally being able his own version of Justice League. And he celebrated in style, by bringing a tiny glimpse of what’s to come with him.
There’s no official Snyder presence at SDCC this year ” or Warner Bros. as a studio, opting instead to run their own “DC FanDome” event next month that will debut new Justice League footage ” but the director brought the noise instead as part of Justice Con, a fan event running over the weekend. Snyder’s chat with pop culture bloggers The Nerd Queens revealed a few details about what people will be able to expect from the director’s radical overhaul of the work he first began in 2017. But he also dropped a very tiny look at his cut of the film: specifically, the moment where Superman (Henry Cavill), wearing his black suit, flies over to Bruce’s (Ben Affleck’s) hideout and bumps into Alfred (Jeremy Irons).
This clip has been seen before ” it was released as a deleted scene for Justice League‘s eventual home release, where the suit was actually its usual red, yellow and blue (seen in our top photo) ” but this time it’s in both the uncropped, IMAX format that Snyder is currently formatting his entire cut for and of course, if features the heavily rumoured black suit that was never actually seen in Joss Whedon’s version.
Snyder lobbied for the black suit to appear in Justice League, as the “correct evolution” for the character, but Warner Bros. allegedly pushed back as it as being “too dark” for the character. While Snyder shot the suit as it was, he noted that the production team conducted tests to find a way to recolor the suit in post-production… the fruit of which labour can be seen above.
Beyond discussing the tiny fragment of footage ” which the director teased is just a precursor to much more to be shown at Warner Bros.’ FanDome event in August ” Snyder also offered an update on where work on his extended, purportedly roughly four-hour cut of the film is at. According to the director, the version of the movie he’s building the official “Zack Snyder’s Justice League“ (name pending legal settlements with Warner Bros, apparently) from is based on a final cut finished in February 2017, just months before Snyder had to leave production due to tragic personal circumstances. As well as finishing visual effects work, the “new” cut restores the 1:4:3 IMAX aspect ratio that Snyder had intended to present the entire film in, rather than just individual scenes as was the case for Batman v Superman‘s IMAX presentation.
Even before unfortunate events drew Snyder away from his project, the director always believed that, while his massive cut of the film could never be feasibly considered for Justice League‘s theatrical release, that one day some version of it would see an official release, whether on HBO, or in a limited capacity in theatres. Now, four years later by the time it begins streaming, he’ll finally get his wish. You can see the full panel with Snyder below, the brief footage can be seen at 38:07.
Snyder’s Justice League is currently set to release on HBO Max some time in 2021. We’ll see more from the film next month, when Warner Bros.’ DC FanDome event kicks off on August 22.