Zack Snyder Reiterates That Snydercut ‘Justice League’ Is His “Last” DCU Movie & WB is “100% Moving On”

“Zack Snyder’s “Justice League,” the filmmaker’s director’s cut of 2017 “Justice League,” is about to be released into the world. In fact, the fan embargo for the film has been moved to today, Sunday 14, 2021, and the critical embargo won’t be heard until tomorrow (our review tomorrow as well).

READ MORE: ‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’: Official Clip Re-Introduces The Justice League

As you’ve heard, the 4-hour, R-Rated version of the film is relatively notorious. Snyder abandoned the film in 2017 after a family tragedy coupled with feeling like it wasn’t worth it to fight Warner Bros. on the film while grieving (who can argue with that decision given the circumstances). Joss Whedon finished the film, and it came out later that year at 2 hours in length, largely derided by critics and fans. After years of #ReleaseTheSnydercut fan petitioning, WB and specifically, HBO Max gave Snyder roughly $70 million to finish and release his assembly cut into the four-hour movie, which arrives next Thursday to the public.

READ MORE: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2021

And in a new New York Times article, Snyder shed much light on the movie. For one, underlying the aforementioned point: without a streaming service, the film might not have been finished.  “This movie wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for HBO Max,” he said. “I’m eternally grateful for them.”

READ MORE: Zack Snyder’s Ambitious Plans For ‘Justice Leauge 2 & 3’ Included The Legion of Doom & Deaths of Multiple Heroes

Amongst it all, a new hashtag has emerged: #RestoreTheSnyderVerse, aka, fans, now that they’ve got their version of “Justice League,” are now demanding and petitioning Warner Bros. to pivot back to Snyder’s version of the DC Universe., and allowing him to fulfill the idea of “Justice League 2” and “Justice League 3,” the details of which he has spoken about at length—essentially, heroes die, Flash reverse time and revives them, and then all of earth battles against the villain Darkseid in a big bad battle not unlike “Avengers Endgame.”

READ MORE: Zack Snyder Reveals First Look At Jared Leto’s Joker & Suggests New ‘Justice League’ Teases Robin’s Death

There are more than a few problems with this idea. The events of “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” no longer work—and are sometimes even contradictory— with many of the subsequent entries of the DCU: “Aquaman” and “Wonder Woman 1984” essentially don’t work within his film’s canon. Then there’s the upcoming “Flash” movie which is going to use the same time travel device Snyder intended to reset time, give a goodbye to Ben Affleck’s version of Batman (that Snyder cast), and reintroduce Michael Keaton’s version of Batman from the Tim Burton films, likely as a kind of new mentor figure.

READ MORE: Zack Snyder Says His ‘Justice League’ Director’s Cut Is A Movie, No Longer A Series

All of this makes reverting back to Snyder’s version of the DCU and reinstating him as the creative figurehead more than unlikely and next to impossible.  And Snyder basically addressed all that.

READ MORE: ‘Zach Snyder’s Justice League’ Trailer: The Ultimate Director’s Cut Has A Little Joker

Asked by the Times if he felt WB was dismantling his legacy, he admitted, they were pivoting away from the events and set-up of his universe. “They are 100 percent moving away,” he said. They consider the theatrical cut of ‘Justice League’ as canon.”

READ MORE: Zack Snyder Says ‘Justice League’ Ends With “Massive Cliffhanger” & Sequel Would Have Taken Place In “Knightmare” Setting

If that’s the case, why does “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” set-up a sequel that’s never going to come? (not a spoiler, Snyder has discussed this many times, and he and the Times address this specifically). “I added it because this was going to be the last movie I make for the DCU, and to have this entire cinematic universe without Batman and Joker meeting up just felt weird,” he said. Pressed on the matter—why end the movie on a cliffhanger? he simply says, “The ask was for my version of the movie.”

READ MORE: ‘Army Of The Dead’: Zack Snyder Says WB Wasn’t Interested In His Zombie Film & Reveals New Image

OK, so, if that doesn’t put a fine end to this story, I don’t know what does. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t come out in animation or a comic book at some point, but cinematically, it’s pretty apparent that the Snyderverse ends here, and that might just be a reality fans have to face.

READ MORE: Zack Snyder Says “Badly Misunderstood” ‘Sucker Punch’ Is “A Big F*ck You To A Lot Of People”

What’s next? A Netflix zombie film (“Army of The Dead”), and it seems pretty clear that Snyder has set up Netflix, not Warner Bros., as a new home. And then, not an adaptation of Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead,” as some may have thought, but something more lo-fi.

“I’m trying to put together this movie called ‘Horse Latitudes,’ a super-microbudget movie that I’m going to go shoot with my buddies in South America,” he explained. “It’s about a man’s journey into his past, and how does death shape you? Am I ready to make a movie like that? I think so.

As for “The Fountainhead,” Snyder says there are rights issues, and it’s on the “back burner” for now. “We need a less divided country and a little more liberal government to make that movie, so people don’t react to it in a certain way,” he said. “We’ll see. I’m in no rush.”

As for his new 4-hour “Justice League,” our reaction soon, and he facetiously describes it as, “‘The Irishman,’ but with action. You could say that. That’s a fine review. You could also say it’s the ‘Godfather’ of superhero movies. That’s another fine review.”

Read the entire interview, including his appreciation for Kelly Reichardt’s “First Cow” at the NYTimes article here. Update: a new trailer has arrived as well. “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” debuts this Thursday, March 18 on HBO Max. Watch it below.