DC fans, rejoice: The Snyder Cut of Justice League is finally being released! Well, kind of.
Director Zack Snyder, who initially helmed the 2017 superhero blockbuster but left before production was complete due to a family tragedy, revealed on Wednesday (May 20) that the world will soon indeed get to see his vision of the film. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Snyder Cut will hit the new streaming service HBO Max (launching on May 27), likely sometime in 2021. The final shape it’ll take remains a question, though it could be one four-hour cut of the film or split up into six “chapters.”
After Snyder left the film in mid-2017, Avengers director Joss Whedon was brought in to retool the film and to keep its slated release date in November. But the mythical Snyder Cut, theoretically more in line with his grittier previous entries in the DC Extended Universe Man of Steel and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, has its roots in the director’s stated ideal version of the film, which he said would run nearly four hours long. He apparently delivered a version of this that ran nearly two-and-a-half hours long to meet Warner Bros.’s request before he stepped away.
That version, as THR notes, was far from finished and lacking post-production work, including visual effects. So, no, there’s never actually been a finished Snyder Cut — but this new deal with HBO Max allows Snyder the creative freedom (and crucially, the money) to realize one. It could reportedly cost between $20 and $30 million.
This news will certainly please the film’s star Jason Momoa, who told MTV News in 2019 that he’d seen the Snyder Cut — or whatever version of it that exists — and that “the public needs to see it.”
Momoa himself, as Aquaman, may also return to help see it through; as THR points out, “Snyder also spent April and May reaching out to the sizable cast, giving a heads-up on the new development and letting them know their services may be needed.” That could include Ben Affleck as Batman, Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, Henry Cavill as Superman, Ezra Miller as The Flash, and more.
“As a fan, I’m very, very happy that I got to see it,” Momoa told MTV News’s Josh Horowitz last year. Next year, he might be in good company, once the Snyder Cut hits HBO Max for real.
Find all the details right here, and then relive the glorious moment of Momoa exclaiming “fuck yeah, I wanna see it!” in a 2018 MTV News Aquaman interview below.
