In 2017, when #ReleaseTheSnyderCut was born, in light of Joss Whedon’s complete overhaul of “Justice League” after director Zack Snyder departed the production, the social media campaign was seen as a small, but passionate fanbase trying to point out some sort of injustice (no pun intended). But now, years later, the Snyder Cut legion has grown and now includes some of the actual actors from the film, as well as the campaign’s biggest supporter/cheerleader, Snyder himself.
All that to say, #ReleaseTheSnyderCut is much more than just a simple group of fans trying to watch a new cut of a film. Like it or not, it’s a movement. And perhaps the biggest moment in the movement’s two-year existence happened recently when Zack Snyder posted an image that seemingly proved that the mythical Snyder Cut of “Justice League” actually exists. And if that image is to be believed (we’ll get to that in a second), the director’s original vision for the film clocks in at a runtime of over 3-and-a-half-hours. That’s a lot of superhero brooding!
So, when that image of the physical film was shown on Vero, people saw the runtime and freaked out. Was Snyder planning on a superhero epic that would make “Avengers: Endgame” seem like a short film? Well, many assumed that the extended runtime was actually because the Snyder Cut is, and always will be, an assembly cut, which is far from an edited version of the film.
READ MORE: ‘Justice League’ Composer Danny Elfman Says Zack Snyder “Never Finished” His Snyder Cut
The filmmaker, who normally keeps his Snyder Cut musings contained on his Vero account, ventured over to Twitter to refute the claim that the image that he shared of canisters of film was simply his assembly cut, as was posited by many, including Forbes’ Scott Mendelsohn.
“The assembly cut was nearly 5 hours long,” he tweeted.
Of course, the inference here is that the image, and thus, the long run-time was, in fact, his “cut” of the film. So, you can seemingly conclude that the Snyder Cut would clock in at a whopping 3-and-a-half-hours long. Eat your heart out, “The Irishman!” “Justice League: The Snyder Cut” has you beat by a whole 4 minutes.
Now comes the time I add my little warning that no matter what Snyder says, we don’t seem to be any closer to releasing his version of the superhero film. In fact, if the picture he shared, with that 214-minute runtime, is in fact true, then it’s unlikely that we’ll ever see the cut released.
Sure, WB could change its mind and release it on HBO Max (as is the prevailing theory of the Snyder Cut faithful), but even still, the studio would have to lay down a ton of cash to get the cut remotely presentable. And at 214 minutes, the money it would take would likely be pretty immense, considering the minor pay-off.
But hey, #ReleaseTheSnyderCut folks are persistent. And apparently, so is Zack Snyder.
@ScottMendelson The assembly cut was nearly 5 hours long. https://t.co/U4dRDO6E2v
— Zack Snyder (@ZackSnyder) December 5, 2019