When it comes to popular culture, the “meek” have already inherited the Earth. This is a sentiment you see echoed during conversations about contemporary fandom and the state of the superhero movies. While comic books have historically been a form of escape for outsider “geeks” on the fringes, they are now positively mainstream and a driving force in pop culture. This gives fandom enormous power in the eyes of the marketing executives, especially when it comes to contentious projects, such as a director’s cut of “Justice League” from director Zack Snyder.
At this point, there’s no need to relitigate the history of the Snyder Cut. Most of this is known to casual and diehard superhero fans alike—the tragic loss of Snyder’s daughter and his subsequent departure from the project; the reworked script and story by former Marvel director Joss Whedon; the collapse of the proposed DC cinematic universe in the year that followed. What happened to the “Justice League” was undoubtedly upsetting to Warner Bros. accountants, but with regards to the film itself, there’s nothing unique about a blockbuster movie that encounters production setbacks and fails to deliver on its early promise. After all, if Hollywood projects were solely decided on quality, we would already have a George Miller “Justice League” movie under our belt, and this entire discussion would be moot.
And now, in both the most surprising and yet somehow least surprising turn of events in 2020, the Snyder Cut has become a reality. Costing an estimated $20-30 million to reshoot and featuring an unprecedented reworking of the source material – Snyder recently said, after the announcement, that the original “Justice League” only represented “one-fourth” of his original vision – this new version of the film is like nothing we’ve seen from a studio to-date (it might even transform into a series or could play as a four-hour movie, this is all TBD). And that has raised a lot of understandable yellow flags across the internet since the news was released.
If we can divorce the Snyder Cut from the toxic fandom that surrounds it – and that’s a pretty big “if” but bear with me for a moment – this could end up being a fascinating media experiment. Twitter has already been filled with tongue-in-cheek demands for the original versions of contested features, ranging for everything from Paul W.S. Anderson’s “Event Horizon” to, yes, the infamous “Butthole Cut” of Tom Hooper’s 2019 flop “Cats.” And while these jokes vary in their sincerity, there is some logic to this approach. To this point, most legacy director’s cuts only applied to movies with a strong critical consensus. If “Justice League” can justify a directorial overhaul, is there new life to be found in otherwise-forgotten titles like “Knights of Badassdom?”
Besides, these types of studio reworkings always seemed a better fit for the “Justice League” movies of the world, not films like “The Hateful Eight” (which was retooled slightly into a chaptered series form on Netflix last year). Catering to an audience who believes less in the medium and more in the message— aka that a new expensive ‘Batman’ movie matters less than a new expensive ‘Batman’ something— opens the door plenty wide for overhauls of existing properties. And if it gives a filmmaker like Snyder a chance to close the door on some unfinished business? Hollywood history is full of the directorial visions we never got to see. It might be nice to have a studio leave us one less unanswered question for audiences to worry over.
But that “if” from before hangs over the entire project, and it is tough to address these issues without unpacking the complicated relationship between fans and their properties. There is no denying that fans of the Snyder Cut have made Twitter untenable, especially for female creators, and that the ethos of darker and more “mature” superhero movies has cast a pall over each subsequent summer release. Look no further than “Birds of Prey,” the pseudo-sequel to David Ayer’s 2016 release “Suicide Squad.” Ask any writer or comic book fan who tweeted positive things about Cathy Yan’s film what kind of reception they received from online communities, and they will be quick to point out individual moments of harassment. This is why, over the past few years, the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut campaign has come to represent the worst elements of both fandom and online culture.
Are all members of the Snyder campaign indicative of toxic fandom? No, and the community as a whole would be the first to remind you that they raised over $150,000 for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (as they did in the comment sections of a recent Collider piece). But as with any fandom, any criticisms of a part of the group are treated as an attack on the group itself, leading to a shouting match that has given cover for abusers to run rampant under the guise of charitable donations or creative freedom. You cannot have a conversation about misogynistic “Justice League” fans on social media any more than you can have a reasonable conversation about, say, non-intersectional, leftist political activists. This makes it difficult to unpack the complicated impact a decision like this could have on fandom.
There have been many successful fan campaigns over the years that led to the resurgence of once-dead properties. If it were not for the 20 tons of peanuts sent to CBS, for example, I would never have received a second season of my much-beloved post-apocalyptic television series “Jericho.” But the not-so-subtle difference between shows like “Arrested Development” and the “Justice League” rerelease is the concept of “more” versus “mine.” “More” is about voicing support for a property and convincing parent companies that you will show up when the time comes to support additional content from these creators. “Mine” is about rejecting the content you have already been given in favor of a new film or television show that better aligns with the version you have in your head.
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Make no mistake: “Justice League” is the latter. If this were about giving Zack Snyder more opportunities to demonstrate his skills as a director, then there would be a fan petition to have him direct an upcoming DC Universe movie, not recut an already-released feature. It is hard to separate fan demand for a recut “Justice League” with the desire to turn the entire Warner Bros. ship around, focusing less on light-hearted movies like “Aquaman” and “Shazam!” and more on the masculine bombast of Snyder films. Love or hate his movies, Snyder, as a filmmaker, represents a sort of turn-of-the-decade depiction of dour, broody masculinity that action cinema has moved beyond. At the very least, we must interrogate any arguments in favor of turning back this particular clock.
And this raises questions about which of the other creatives in the Warner Bros. pipeline are subject to the whims of this glorified sentiment analysis. Having won their decisive victory, fans have already begun to gear up for a “Suicide Squad” campaign, demanding that Warner Bros. or HBO Max or allow director David Ayer to release his unaltered vision for the film. What level of outrage would these fans need to generate for Robert Pattison to be removed from Matt Reeves’s upcoming “Batman” movie? And what happens if a group of fans gets it into their head that the only thing keeping Ben Affleck from returning as Batman—a role he’s already suggested drove him back to alcoholism and a dark path that lead to divorce—is simply another chartered plane over Comic-Con?
I want nothing more than to be proven wrong and find out that #ReleaseTheSnyderCut is the force of positivity that its proponents say it might be. But until Hollywood manages to mass-market the choose-your-own-adventure style storytelling its pioneered with “Black Mirror” and other programs, we are still dependent on a single narrative for each of the films we watch. It is important that we continue to talk about which voices are being listened to during these conversations— and what some of their numbers might be doing to ensure that they have the loudest possible microphone.