Justice League: Zack Snyder only adding “maybe four minutes” of additional footage for HBO Max re-release

Look, I know that inflation is a nightmare and the cost of things are constantly going up, but I didn’t think it would be this bad! Once upon a time, $70 million dollars could get you an entire film from script to release, but apparently, when it comes to re-releasing failed blockbusters as director’s cut miniseries, $70 million only gets you four minutes. That’s the shocking revelation from director Zack Snyder who recently appeared on Beyond the Trailer (via Collider) to talk about his highly anticipated “Snyder Cut” of Justice League.

The upcoming 4-hour miniseries version of the 2017 box office dud will give us the story Snyder had originally meant to tell before personal tragedy forced him to step away and Warner Bros. and new director Joss Whedon sliced-and-diced the film into something completely different. With Snyder having originally planned for the 2017 film to just be the first chapter of a two-part Justice League story, it was believed that some additional photography would be needed to give this new version coherency. Despite initial reports to the contrary, that additional photography happened recently, with original stars Ben Affleck, Ray Fisher, Gal Gadot, and Amber Heard returning as Batman, Cyborg, Wonder Woman, and Mera, respectively. We also found out recently that Jared Leto would be reprising his divisive take on Joker from Suicide Squad, while Joe Manganiello would be back as Deathstroke, previously only seen in the film’s post-credits scene,

But despite all of those actors being required for a few weeks of shooting that cost Warner Bros a reported additional $70 million (on top of the original $300 million price tag), Snyder reveals that “in the end, it’s going to probably be about four minutes or five minutes of additional photography for the entire movie. In the four hours that is Justice League, maybe four minutes.”

WHAT?!

Firstly, did all the reports somehow collectively get it horribly, ridiculously, dumbfoundingly wrong when it came to how much time and money was being spent on these reshoots? Secondly, WHY WOULD YOU NEED ALL THOSE PEOPLE FOR JUST FOUR MINUTES OF FOOTAGE?! Unless this is for the weirdest group shot we’ve ever seen, there’s no way that there’s enough time for any properly meaningful scenes with all of them. I’m guessing that Joker and Deathstroke are getting blink-and-you-miss-em cameos at best.

To be fair though, it will be very difficult for us to actually say which scenes will be additional photography. The bulk of the footage already making up this new cut of Justice League has never been seen before. Most of it ended up on the cutting room floor after WB and Whedon reshot the theatrical cut extensively. Fisher recently explained that out of all his Cyborg scenes in that theatrical cut, only one was actually from footage that Snyder had shot. When Snyder’s Justice League releases on HBO Max later next year, it will be literally twice as long as Whedon’s version, running four hours over the course of four episodes (with a four-hour-long feature film version planned for release later). And somewhere in there will be four minutes to the value of $70 million.

Last Updated: November 16, 2020