It was a date Justice League fans had circled on their calendars. Select Snyder Cut enthusiasts from all corners of the globe had been invited to a virtual World Premiere that would allow them to see the wildly anticipated Justice League movie a few days before the four-hour cut lands on HBO Max. The festivities were meant to start at 6 pm EST, with access codes emailed to fans so they could see a message from director Zack Snyder and finally watch this epic superhero blockbuster.
Only, it didn’t work. Not initially, and not for hours. And for too many fans, the evening was ruined, even as they tried to maintain a brave front and keep their spirits high for Zack Snyder.
That was a message sent to fans on Zack Snyder’s Twitter four hours after the World Premiere of Justice League was supposed to begin. Snyder couldn’t control the issue. It was a technical issue on Microsoft’s end that led to a system failure with Microsoft Teams and other Microsoft 360 services. According to The Verge, Microsoft blamed the multi-hour outage on “a recent change to an authentication system.” This meant that Justice League fans who were patiently refreshing their Inboxes begging for an access code to show up instead got this email, breaking hearts around the globe:
I can’t begin to imagine the frustration and heartbreak that accompanied this streak of bad luck. Some fans tried to take it in stride, knowing that this was out of Snyder’s hands. Chris Wong Swenson, who runs the YouTube channel Ping Pong Flix, had prepared a large snack in preparation for the four-hour screening, his first chance to see Justice League. When it didn’t happen, he posted:
Others made jokes regarding the mysterious existence of The Cut:
While others used the opportunity to poke fun at the fact that Zack Snyder’s Justice League has been marred by tampering and interference every step of the way, so why should even the film’s World Premiere go off without a hitch?
There was a silver lining of good news. The access codes eventually ended up in fans’ inboxes, and countless DC fans stayed up through the night to make sure that they experienced all four hours of Justice League, the movie they have been waiting for for the past four years. But this is a warning cry to HBO Max, which is about to open its gates to a flood of global interest for this movie. Are they prepared for the amount of interest and attention that this streaming movie could get? What will they do if their servers experience technical issues on day one? There has to be a way to fortify the servers and brace for impact, because a tsunami is coming.
We recently posted our spoiler-free review of the movie on CinemaBlend’s YouTube page, and will have plenty more stories running on our site as the movie makes its way to HBO Max for everyone to see on March 18.
