Justice League is now out and, unsurprisingly, it’s splitting people right down the middle. Many fans love it, but critics are giving the film a pounding. Everyone, however, is intrigued to know how it was changed from its original cut.
In case you’ve missed all the behind the scenes upheaval, Zack Snyder had to hand the keys of the movie over to Joss Whedon due to a family tragedy, meaning the reshoots changed Justice League in some major ways. We’re told that only 15-20% of the final cut is Whedon’s, but we suspect this might be underselling it a bit. What exactly belongs to the Avengers director and what came from Snyder isn’t too hard to spot in the film itself, and while a report surfaced over the weekend outlining many of the latter’s scenes that were removed, we’re now learning just how much was cut.
Rumor has it that Warner Bros. mandated a two-hour runtime just as Justice League was nearing the end of post-production, and according to Jason Momoa, that resulted in a LOT of footage being trimmed. Enough to make a second movie, in fact.
The challenging part is [the Justice League story] is only about a weekend in Author Curry’s life. [Fans] might be like, ‘Why is he that grumpy? Why’s he hiding up there?’ We had it all planned out. A lot of things got cut. But it’s not my movie.
It’s a huge movie introducing three new characters, and for myself and The Flash and Cyborg, there was a lot that was there we just couldn’t get in. It could have been two movies. We had some stuff with William Dafoe. The whole Atlantean part, about me being this reluctant king. There was no need for it because you’re going to see it in Aquaman. It’s not an Aquaman movie, it’s a Justice League movie.
While we’ve heard for a while now that much was removed from Justice League, it’s still surprising to learn that there was enough cut to fill a whole other film. This only makes it all the more disappointing that we probably won’t ever get to see a Director’s Cut – despite there being a huge demand for one. At the very least, we can hope for some deleted scenes on the eventual home video release, whenever that may be.
Justice League initially hit theaters last Friday and has since collected $279 million worldwide. It’s the “dismal” domestic opening that’s the real stinger, though, given that $94m puts JL rock bottom of the fledgling DC Extended Universe in terms of North American debuts. Even Wonder Woman managed to clear $100m back in July, which doesn’t exactly reflect well on DC’s team-up movie.