Now that the Snyder Cut of Justice League has been released, fans of Zack Snyder and his contributions to the DC Universe have set their sights on a new goal, and they’ve adopted a new hashtag. You might have seen #RestoreTheSnyderVerse trending on social media ever since March 18, the day that HBO Max brought the legendary cut of Justice League to its streaming service. Fans are hoping that this wave catches momentum the way their previous campaign did, and overnight, they picked up more famous support.
Actor Joe Manganiello, who plays Deathstroke in Zack Snyder’s Justice League and was supposed to have a meaty part in the stories moving forward, shared an official behind-the-scenes picture that was filmed during the Knightmare sequence while Snyder mapped out additional photography. And in the Tweet (and this part if very important), Manganiello used the hashtag that the Restore community is pushing.
Every little bit of support helps when a campaign like this is trying to make headway, and votes of confidence from actual Justice League cast members should carry extra weight. Naturally, we can understand why Joe Manganiello would be calling for the restoration of the SnyderVerse. At the very least, we know that his Deathstroke was due to be a major part of the Batman movie that Ben Affleck almost directed and starred in. The plot of that film would have seen Slade Wilson (Manganiello) tearing Bruce Wayne down piece by piece -- which is why it’s important that the Snyder Cut of Justice League ended with Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) revealing Batman’s identity to Deathstroke.
As you can tell from the above photo, Deathstroke also would have been on Team Batman in the Knightmare future, and Snyder has said in interviews that his Justice League 2 would have been set largely in this future, where Lois Lane (Amy Adams) has been killed, and Superman (Henry Cavill) has succumbed to Darkseid’s Anti-Life Equation. Restoring the SnyderVerse means job security for Joe Manganiello, so his Tweet is helpful, and it makes sense.
Will it work? It’s a mountain that has to be moved, a huge boulder that’s being pushed uphill to convince Warner Bros. to continue investing in a vision that the studio doesn’t really support. The studio’s opinion of the Snyder Cut seems to be that releasing this version is the best that fans are going to get, and that the rest of the DC universe will continue in theatrical releases such as Aquaman 2, Andy Muschietti’s The Flash, Shazam: Fury of the Gods, and the Black Adam movie that The Rock is piloting. Fans would like to argue that the SnyderVerse can co-exist with those movies and live on HBO Max. But there has been no indication yet that the studio plans to do that.
For now, you can watch Zack Snyder’s Justice League in its four-hour glory on HBO MAX, and we will continue to track any more Justice League stars that join Joe Manganiello, Ray Fisher and more and Tweet their support.
