Justice League 4K UHD (2017)

[Batfreakforever1939]

Runtime says 3.5 hours.
Now thats an epic big screen outing for Justice League.
Please release it.

[Geoff D]

And yet this recent piece from Variety quoted an insider as saying “That’s a pipe dream, there’s no way it’s ever happening".

Snyder has a rough cut of the film, his contractually obliged 'director's cut' which was cobbled together from whatever they'd shot and would normally then go into many rounds of consultation with the studio about what was working and what was not. It's little more than an assembly which is why it's 3½ hours long, and even with the cluster**** of BvS' truncated theatrical release there was no way Warners would've released a 214-minute cut of JL to theatres.

I'd LOVE to see it happen, don't get me wrongo, but it simply doesn't exist as a finished film inclusive of ADR, VFX, music etc. Warners would need to pump millions into it to actually finish the thing and I'm not sure the appetite is there with the execs.

[overmang5]

True, but there's also Jason Momoa saying there was a pretty much finished Snyder version that he actually saw, but declined to confirm whether the VFX shots where also completed for it.

https://www.cinemablend.com/news/248...very-different

And based on the amount of super-stache scenes in the finished film, I'd say there were considerable re-shoots so as to cover existing footage and change the overall tone of the film. So its safe to say at least a good percentage of the film was shot and compiled.

I have a feeling Snyder was closer to finishing it than people think. Whether WB execs care to throw more money at it to get it up to mass release standards would be up for debate.

Maybe Snyder can talk them into it.

[Jumpman]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

And yet this recent piece from Variety quoted an insider as saying “That’s a pipe dream, there’s no way it’s ever happening".

Snyder has a rough cut of the film, his contractually obliged 'director's cut' which was cobbled together from whatever they'd shot and would normally then go into many rounds of consultation with the studio about what was working and what was not. It's little more than an assembly which is why it's 3½ hours long, and even with the cluster**** of BvS' truncated theatrical release there was no way Warners would've released a 214-minute cut of JL to theatres.

I'd LOVE to see it happen, don't get me wrongo, but it simply doesn't exist as a finished film inclusive of ADR, VFX, music etc. Warners would need to pump millions into it to actually finish the thing and I'm not sure the appetite is there with the execs.

It’s not an assembly cut. Larry Fong confirmed that Snyder had picture lock of his director’s cut in February of 2017.

The only question that truly remains, especially after Junkie XL confirmed he finished the score as well, is how much of the vfx need to be finished?

[Geoff D]

Perhaps not an assembly but still not a finished film, directors don't often have final cut but it's in their contract that they get to deliver an initial "director's cut" of whatever film they're working on, assembled from whatever they've shot. So while he "locked" that version this is before it gets turned over to the studio and the inevitable parlay begins as to what gets kept, what gets thrown out and what gets reshot. I just don't believe that it's ready to go as-is.

[Jumpman]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Perhaps not an assembly but still not a finished film, directors don't often have final cut but it's in their contract that they get to deliver an initial "director's cut" of whatever film they're working on, assembled from whatever they've shot. So while he "locked" that version this is before it gets turned over to the studio and the inevitable parlay begins as to what gets kept, what gets thrown out and what gets reshot. I just don't believe that it's ready to go as-is.

Don’t think they’ll be doing the “what stays and what goes” with this version of the film, considering what happened with the theatrical cut.

It’s been implied VERY heavily by some that he continued to work on the picture even after he after “he left.”

Personally speaking since I’ve been following the story for a while, I think he does have picture lock on this version of the film, which he deems the director’s cut and I don’t foresee him making changes to it. Again, the question remains, how much vfx were done.

Fabian Wagner confirmed at a Q&A a couple of days ago that he and Snyder color timed the first three trailers for JL. That third trailer for JL dropped on Comic Con of that year, so a lot of the vfx were pretty far along. It all just depends on what did not get finished.

[captveg]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

It's little more than an assembly which is why it's 3½ hours long, and even with the cluster**** of BvS' truncated theatrical release there was no way Warners would've released a 214-minute cut of JL to theatres.

Not exactly.

Per Mark Hughes, Snyder has been tinkering with the film over the past couple years.

"[Y]es, there were multiple edits of the film, including an early assembly cut, but Snyder and his crew continued working on the film and created a more completed version."

So the 214m runtime is for his final, locked director's cut (aside from some visual effects work - per Hughes again, "[T]he claim that it would take a large amount of money – or any money, really – to get the cut into shape for viewing is simply false.").

Yes, it's true that Snyder would never have released a 3.5 hr cut theatrically. He probably would have had an under 3 hr (maybe even 2.5 hr) theatrical cut if he never left the film, with the 3.5 hr cut on video only, like they did with BvS. However, since he ultimately never had to deliver a shorter theatrical cut for the studio, why would he bother with that now? He wouldn't.

[Geoff D]

You're quite right that he wouldn't have to worry about a suitable theatrical length now but I'm coming at that more from the point of refining the film, i.e. just because it's long doesn't mean it's as good as it could be. No idea who Mark Hughes is (ah, Forbes, no wonder I've no idea who he is as that place is full of so much clickbait nonsense these days) but if ZS has actually been refining the cut on his own time and his own dime then that's fair enough.

But if it does yet need some VFX then that doesn't tally with the claim that it needs "any money" to get it into shape for viewing, unless people want it to have animatics or dollar-fifty VFX in some scenes like what Warners did with the Donner cut of Superman II? In which case folks will just start b!tching at Warners anew.

[morphinapg]

WB has released a 3.5 hour movie before

Perhaps that's just what the series needs. When it's good, people will go to long movies. But you have to have a lot of faith in it.

But I am VERY skeptical that it wouldn't take a massive VFX budget to finish a cut like that. Just because there are a lot of VFX in a trailer or two doesn't give you any kind of indication of how much work was completed on the entire movie's VFX at that point. Most VFX don't actually get totally finished until very close to release. You might have some earlier animatics and stuff, or earlier stage VFX, possibly even in most shots, but production quality stuff? There was probably very little at that point.

[JEDGAR1000]

In regards to the VFX, two of the film's supervisors said this a while back

Many VFX shots are complete, some percentage were various stages of completion, from early postvis to almost done (but not quite)

https://www.comicbookmovie.com/justi...mplete-a171473

I think if this does happen, it'll be a HBO Max 'original'. I can't see Warner spending the money to finish vfx for just a bluray release, but given that they need original titles, I think it has a chance of happening there (and all the tweeting from cast members seems odd at the very least, so fingers crossed something is up).

[captveg]

Worth posting

[overmang5]

Interesting.

Also of note, is that there are several canisters of the movie.

Almost as if it was being readied for some type of release?

[Conan The Barbarian]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

And yet this recent piece from Variety quoted an insider as saying “That’s a pipe dream, there’s no way it’s ever happening".

Snyder has a rough cut of the film, his contractually obliged 'director's cut' which was cobbled together from whatever they'd shot and would normally then go into many rounds of consultation with the studio about what was working and what was not. It's little more than an assembly which is why it's 3½ hours long, and even with the cluster**** of BvS' truncated theatrical release there was no way Warners would've released a 214-minute cut of JL to theatres.

I'd LOVE to see it happen, don't get me wrongo, but it simply doesn't exist as a finished film inclusive of ADR, VFX, music etc. Warners would need to pump millions into it to actually finish the thing and I'm not sure the appetite is there with the execs.

lol I think that's a finished product. He has been posting screen caps with finished effects. And he just tweeted that his assembly cut was 5 hours long. So yea, I think that its the real deal.

I mean, the director himself is telling everyone that its there yet no one wants to believe him, I find that so bizarre.

[Geoff D]

As the saying goes: I'll believe it when I see it.

[morphinapg]

Originally Posted by overmang5

Interesting.

Also of note, is that there are several canisters of the movie.

Almost as if it was being readied for some type of release?

It takes a lot of film for 214 minutes. I believe those are just all the reels.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by morphinapg

It takes a lot of film for 214 minutes. I believe those are just all the reels.

Yep. In case people aren't aware, movies aren't stored in one giant reel of film running from beginning to end because it would be far too unwieldy and heavy. So they're divided into reels, typically running for ~20 minutes each, so in JL: DC's case it would comprise of 11 such reels and those four canisters shown (presuming two reels per can) aren't even the full complement. Though 3 reels per can works too, depends how big they are as you can't really tell from the photo without a frame of reference.

[rodie]

Adding to the intrigue, Snyder took to twitter today debunking the idea that this is an assembly cut:

@ScottMendelson
The assembly cut was nearly 5 hours long.

https://twitter.com/ZackSnyder/statu...49210954244096

[Show spoiler]

[morphinapg]

#ReleaseTheAssemblyCut

[HDMan72]

Originally Posted by Conan The Barbarian

I mean, the director himself is telling everyone that its there yet no one wants to believe him, I find that so bizarre.

Yes, this is a huge piece of all this information. Like David Ferrie said in the Oliver Stone movie JFK, "It's a mystery. It's a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma!"

[Batfreakforever1939]

I love it how the internet and the media think they know better than ZS about what state his own film is in.
His cast and crew have backed him. He's letting people know it's done.
People that actually work with ZS knows exactly his work process is and gave him support.
Directors cuts are nothing new and they have been released before when an original director has left or was unable to finish his vision.
3.5 hour film is nothing new to ZS. He makes long movies. JL was originally the same type of film he always does. Big, long, dark, violent epic. WB knew exactly what they were going to get from him from the get go but cold feet.
JL theatrical cut and Its critical and Bo is failure is all WB and Joss Whedon's fault. They screwed over the fans, cast and crew of Zac Snyder.
Now Zach has returned to put things right.
WB needs to own responsibility for their actions and release his cut because what it looks like is that they used Zac's personal tragedy as a chance to toy with his movie which resulted in all round failure..
I liked the JL we got but it clashes with what was established in the previous films.
If Zac's JL caps off the story he started with MOS then it needs to be released even more.