Zack Snyder reveals Justice League HBO Max release date, teases simultaneous R-rated theatrical release

The long and twisting saga of Zack Snyder’s Justice League (aka “the Snyder Cut” if you’re old school like me – and yes, this entire thing has been going on long enough to have its own “old school”) finally has a finish line in sight. Since officially being announced by Warner Bros. in the early parts of this year, all we’ve known is that Snyder’s four-hour miniseries director’s cut version of the 2017 box office bomb would be released in 2021. But now the director himself has seemingly revealed that Zack Snyder’s Justice League will be hitting HBO Max in March next year.

Snyder rather nonchalantly dropped this key nugget of info when a answering fan’s question on the director’s favourite social media site Vero.

Well, that gives me a bit more time to figure out how to get around the geofencing that is currently preventing us from accessing HBO Max in South Africa (getting the actual app via VPN is a breeze, but getting it to accept localized payment not so much). The alternative would be to just watch it in the cinema. Yes, you read that right.

We had already heard that Snyder and co were planning to take the four-episode miniseries and do a four-hour-long feature film version to be released on HBO Max. But while speaking to EW recently about WB’s controversial new plan to give its entire 2021 film slate a simultaneous release on HBO Max and in theatres, the director revealed that he hopes to do the same for Justice League.

I’m a huge fan and a big supporter of the cinematic experience, and we’re already talking about Justice League playing theatrically at the same time it’s coming to HBO Max. So weirdly, it’s the reverse [of the trend].

Oh and did forget to mention that this potential theatrical release (along with the HBO Max miniseries version) will also be R-rated because Batman has a potty mouth and Steppenwolf is a hacker of sorts?

Here’s one piece of information nobody knows: The movie is insane and so epic and is probably rated R — that’s one thing I think will happen, that it will be an R-rated version, for sure. We haven’t heard from the MPAA, but that’s my gut.

There’s one scene where Batman drops an F-bomb. Cyborg is not too happy with what’s going on with his life before he meets the Justice League, and he tends to speak his mind. And Steppenwolf is pretty much just hacking people in half. So [the rating would be due to] violence and profanity, probably both.

That certainly sounds… interesting. Or should that be “f–king interesting”? As much as I am genuinely looking forward to watching this new Justice League (historically, all Snyder’s extended director’s cuts of his movies have been vastly superior to the original theatrical versions), I’m even more excited for this entire four-year-long debacle to just be behind us. Good or bad, I just need the Snyder Cut to come out so we can start being irrationally aggressive to each other about other stuff for a change.

Last Updated: December 17, 2020