There are some who hope that somehow, someway, through Hollywood magic Zack Snyder will get to finish his Justice League vision. Sadly, that’s not happening on the 2025 movie schedule, if ever; but it is important to realize what fans and studio execs achieved when the Snyder Cut was released in 2021.
And one party that still acknowledges just how wild it is that Zack Snyder’s Justice League exists is its Batman/Bruce Wayne, actor Ben Affleck. During GQ’s recent interview with Affleck, the multi-hyphenate was grilled on practically his entire filmography. Through his background as an actor/director who understands the complications of capturing a vision, Ben Affleck started recalling the complications of this experience thusly:
The Snyder Cut, so to speak, is actually the movie that Zack wanted to make. You have a director with a very clear idea of the kind of story they understand and want to tell and they know. And then you’ve got a commercial expectation, like a very valuable IP property.
In its initial form, Warner Bros. decision makers used those twin influences to justify the decision of having Avengers mastermind Joss Whedon complete and recut what became Justice League’s “rough, uneven, and downright ugly” 2017 theatrical cut. The reception from fans and critics proved that decision was not exactly the best, which led to a movement to “release the Snyder Cut” - which eventually happened three years later.
But even in reflecting on that point, Ben Affleck can relate with the moviemaking process and how it can complicate things. Sharing his further thoughts on the matter, the Argo director offered this insight:
And sometimes they’ll hire this person for their distinctive take and view, and then want to impose on that something different. And the tension between those two things I think was very difficult and caused the first movie to feel very much like neither fish nor fowl. Which happens.
Bringing us back to the here and now, Zack Snyder’s Justice League is the full fledged version of a crucial chapter to Zack Snyder’s intended five-film arc with DC's metahumans. As a notable cinematic achievement, as well as a Max subscription driver, restoring the story that the Watchmen director wanted to tell is something viewers still appreciate the existence of.
Rounding out the reasons why that’s the case, Affleck ran through these Zack Snyder trademarks, and why this is something to celebrate:
You know, a lot of long slow-motion sequences, stuff in black and white, very much R-rated. That movie is very much what Zack’s vision was. And it’s a rare thing that somebody gets the chance to go back and revisit and try to do what they wanted to do.
All of this talk about rare chances to get to revisit a story couldn’t have come at a better time. As J.K. Simmon’s recent comments on The Accountant 2 showed just how hard Ben Affleck and director Gavin O’Connor worked to make it happen; that sequel’s impending arrival is also something worth celebrating.
Whether the end result is widely accepted, panned, or lands somewhere in the middle, allowing a creative to fulfill their initial vision is a good thing. We may never see the final acts of Zack Snyder’s operatic superhero spectacle, but at least Zack Snyder’s Justice League still exists as a monument to what could have been. In the meantime, you can catch Mr. Affleck’s return as Christian Wolff in The Accountant 2, which is set to hit theaters on April 25th.
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