Here’s Rolling Stone’s story from earlier this week, implying that Zack Snyder shook down Warner Brothers in finishing the Snyder cut.
How the ‘Justice League’ Snyder Cut Was Driven by Bots & an Ad Agency - Rolling Stone
My thoughts:
If Warner Bros. didn’t want to be hounded for the Snyder Cut, then why the hell didn’t they include a ton of deleted footage on the Blu Ray release of the Justice League? Seems like the only reason to conceal all that footage would be to save for release in some other form. The article claims Snyder walked off with footage that wasn’t his, but gives no indication that prevented Warner Bros from having any access to different copies of the same content.
I never gave the death threats to WB executives much concern, since seems like it would be limited to two nerds in their basement, and not a realistic threat. If the death threats were being encouraged by Snyder, that would be criminal behavior, but the article doesn’t suggest that was the case.
Including Martian Manhunter. That was ultimately kind of silly. It takes Martha Kent’s big dramatic scene and instead makes it Martian Manhunter (who must be acting his heart out). But Warner Bros. ultimately said yes to including MM and agreed to pay for reshoots. There’s no suggestion the fans were forcing them to pay for reshoots or forcing them to include certain characters (plus, WB did deny Snyder the use of Green Lantern). Would it have made more business sense for Warners to dissaprove any additional filming? At that price, probably so, but it was useful publicity at the time
Ray Fisher’s allegations just being part of the effort to put pressure on Warner Brothers: Fisher is still hung up on the allegations well after the release of the Snyder Cut, so his complaints were sincere. Like some allegations from Rolling Stone, Fisher’s complaints seem pretty over-blown.
The biggest stink coming from the Snyderverse fans to me is the rigging of the Academy Awards fan voting outcomes. That nonsense really reflects poorly on all of fandom.
Review-bombing Kong vs. Godzilla and The Suicide Squad: I suspect that kind of crap happens all the time, with movies far removed from Marvel and DC, and will be forever a challenge to identify and stop. At the time of its debut, I declared I didn’t think Suicide Squad lived up to it’s billing. SS got a poor Cinemascore, but I don’t see how that could be connected to Snyderverse fans. Seems like older fans legitimately took isssue with the film, and thus the Cinemascore rating.
Anyway, despite a lack of bombshell allegations in this article, I wouldn’t say Zack Snyder comes off well. Grace Randolph proved to be correct that Ezra Miller was a risk for WB, but she reported it immediately after an interview with Snyder, so it seemed like she clearly got it from him. And very soon after that, Miller is suddenly willing to be in the Snyder cut reshoots.
Anyway, so much skullduggery. Hopefully, we get a comprehensive book on this at some point…
