Justice League: 10 Huge New Reveals About Zack Snyder's Reshoots
4. Zack Snyder Had Some Unique Ideas For A Threatrical Release Prior To 2017
It's no wonder Justice League went over budget when Zack Snyder ended up shooting a four-hour movie! As noted, that's now being released as a four-part miniseries on HBO Max, but the filmmaker was well-aware that Warner Bros. wouldn't be on board with a movie that long back in 2017.
As a result, he hoped it could be released as two, two-hour movies in theaters (back in 2017) separated by a month. "The studio had seen the director’s cut, but even the director’s cut of the movie was shorter than my cut," Snyder explained. "Yes, this is my cut of the movie, but there was a cut that I created that I said this is too much for the studio. The mandate was, make the movie two hours long."
"If I show them a four-hour version of the movie...I did have this idea, 'Oh, maybe we could just split it in half and make it into two two-hour movies,'" the director continued. "My first idea was like, you showed two hours, and then there’s like, maybe a month, and then the next two hours come out. That was one of my ideas."
It seems Snyder was replaced by Joss Whedon before he could even pitch that to Warner Bros., but these reshoots have at least given him the chance to make the four-hour epic he always wanted.