How many new scenes will we see inZack Snyder’s Justice League? Well, that depends on what you consider “new.” Ever since Warner Bros. first announced it was going to allowZack Snyderto finishhis cut ofJustice League, fans wondered just how much was on the cutting room floor, and how significant reshoots would be. Snyder left very early in post-production, andJoss Whedonwrote and directed a number of new scenes that reshaped the theatrical cut of the film.
Now producerDeborah Snyderis pulling back the curtain a bit on how The Snyder Cut was created, revealing on theLightCast podcast(viaThe Playlist) that they only shot one wholly new scene after getting the go-ahead from Warner Bros.:
“People kept thinking, ‘Oh, they went and shot so much more stuff’ and I go, ‘We literally shot one scene, like one additional [scene]. I shot three days here. That’s it. That what we captured.'”
Based on the trailer, that scene has to be the “Knightmare” sequence that sees the appearance ofJared Leto’s Joker. Snyder has already admitted that Leto’s cameo was not part of the original plan for hisJustice League, but the actor was game to give hisSuicide Squadrole another shot in Snyder’s cut ofJL.
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Ben Affleck,Ezra Miller, andAmber Heardall participated in the reshoots for this one scene, although Deborah Snyder revealed that Miller had to shoot his scenes from a stage in the U.K. where he was busy filmingFantastic Beasts 3:
“It was also weird because Ezra [Miller] as shooting [‘Fantastic Beasts at the time] and he’s in the scene,” explained Snyder. “So, we shot him remotely. Zack Zoomed in because he was on ‘Fantastic Beasts.’ Luckily, their crew is amazing they were like, ‘We’ll help you!’ So, we got a green screen and they had a camera feed and a Zoom. He got to direct Ezra via Zoom and we put him in.”
So then how is the Snyder Cut ofJustice Leaguefour hours long? And how is Darkseid in this movie and not in the theatrical cut? Well, Snyder has long proven talented when it comes to seamlessly blending cutting-edge VFX technology into his films, and thus the visual effects workload for The Snyder Cut washeavy. That means Snyder and Co. were able to fully envision new scenes that were entirely CG, or finish dropped scenes that never made it into the theatrical cut.
Deborah Snyder revealed that thousands of new VFX shots were necessary forZack Snyder’s Justice League, and they had about half the time needed to get them done:
“The running time is just about four hours. If you think about it, about how much extra time that is, and then you think about how visual effects-heavy these superhero films are, we had to do, in six months, 2,650-some-odd visual effects shots. And normally, when you do these movies, what happens is, as you’re shooting, you start turning over shots. Listen, we had a lot of assets built, but I think the way the theatrical release was done, they changed a lot of things. And through the process, as we were working on the movie, [there were] some of the things they wanted Zack to change, some of the designs of the characters. So, we want back to the original intention, of Zack’s intention, in terms of the characters and had to rebuild those models. But then there were just so many shots to do.”
However you feel about The Snyder Cut, it is undeniably interesting to learn that Snyder was able to go back and finish and reshape his cut almost entirely using visual effects. How will the finished product hold up? We’ll find out whenZack Snyder’s Justice Leaguepremieres on HBO Max on March 18th.
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