Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021)

[pottyaboutpotter1]

Originally Posted by cheecheung

I’m not even going to read any posts about it now. Apparently the Warner higher ups didn’t want this Snyder Cut to be made. They didn’t like where Snyder was going with the film.

Also because audiences and critics largely disliked Batman v Superman and Zack's cut of Justice League was going to be doubling down on a lot of the things audiences didn't like, so WB put a stop to it out of concern for the financial viability of the franchise.

[StuPod]

Originally Posted by pottyaboutpotter1

Also because audiences and critics largely disliked Batman v Superman and Zack's cut of Justice League was going to be doubling down on a lot of the things audiences didn't like, so WB put a stop to it out of concern for the financial viability of the franchise.

Weren't most of the problems people had with BvS to do with the way it was cut for the theatrical release? I still haven't actually seen the movie but isn't the Ultimate Cut considered a significant improvement?

[cheecheung]

Originally Posted by pottyaboutpotter1

Also because audiences and critics largely disliked Batman v Superman and Zack's cut of Justice League was going to be doubling down on a lot of the things audiences didn't like, so WB put a stop to it out of concern for the financial viability of the franchise.

But if they didn’t like Snyder’s cut of the Justice League script they wouldn’t have made it or they would have told him to change it. I read that they watched parts of the Snyder cut and they just didn’t like the cut. It was probably why Whedon had changed most of it. It was the publicity that helped Snyder get this cut out.

[NKB2017]

Originally Posted by StuPod

Weren't most of the problems people had with BvS to do with the way it was cut for the theatrical release? I still haven't actually seen the movie but isn't the Ultimate Cut considered a significant improvement?

That's my understanding too. Yes, the Ultimate Cut is a MASSIVE improvement.

[pottyaboutpotter1]

Originally Posted by StuPod

Weren't most of the problems people had with BvS to do with the way it was cut for the theatrical release? I still haven't actually seen the movie but isn't the Ultimate Cut considered a significant improvement?

No most of the problems people had were with the characterisations of Batman, Superman and Lex and with certain aspects of the story that no amount of extra scenes were going to improve alongside the dark tone, the sense the film was trying to do too much and what many felt were poor narrative choices.

A lot of the problems audiences and critics had with the film were not going to be fixed by extra scenes.

[drterror666]

Originally Posted by StuPod

Weren't most of the problems people had with BvS to do with the way it was cut for the theatrical release?

I've never watched the theatrical cut, just the ultimate one. I didn't think I'd like it but I thought it was really good. Lots of detail to look out for and things said conversationally to keep an ear on. Also, as far as I've been told, the very beginning of the film now makes much more sense.

[DrWally]

Originally Posted by pottyaboutpotter1

No most of the problems people had were with the characterisations of Batman, Superman and Lex and with certain aspects of the story that no amount of extra scenes were going to improve alongside the dark tone, the sense the film was trying to do too much and what many felt were poor narrative choices.

A lot of the problems audiences and critics had with the film were not going to be fixed by extra scenes.

And yet, BVS still managed to gross a healthy if unspectacular $855 million and got a respectable 'B' Cinemascore. And that's an outcome for Justice League that Warner would have bitten their arm off for after the Whedon version finally got released. Whatever problems BVS may have had for some audiences, Snyder should have been allowed to finish what he started without the executive interference.

Be it Dark Phoenix, Justice League, or The Rise of Skywalker, kowtowing to complaining fanboys is always a recipe for disaster.

[Bourne1886]

Originally Posted by DrWally

And yet, BVS still managed to gross a healthy if unspectacular $855 million and got a respectable 'B' Cinemascore. And that's an outcome for Justice League that Warner would have bitten their arm off for after the Whedon version finally got released. Whatever problems BVS may have had for some audiences, Snyder should have been allowed to finish what he started without the executive interference.

Be it Dark Phoenix, Justice League, or The Rise of Skywalker, kowtowing to complaining fanboys is always a recipe for disaster.

The thing is without Fanboys there’d be no Snyder Cut. So it works both ways!

[cheecheung]

Originally Posted by DrWally

And yet, BVS still managed to gross a healthy if unspectacular $855 million and got a respectable 'B' Cinemascore. And that's an outcome for Justice League that Warner would have bitten their arm off for after the Whedon version finally got released. Whatever problems BVS may have had for some audiences, Snyder should have been allowed to finish what he started without the executive interference.

Be it Dark Phoenix, Justice League, or The Rise of Skywalker, kowtowing to complaining fanboys is always a recipe for disaster.

I see gross $877 million on Box Office Mojo. On a $250 million budget they needed to make $500 million to make their budget back at the cinema as cinemas take 50% cut, then they would have spent $100-150 million to market this if not more. So that leaves them with $227 million profit. Considering we’re talking about this film having Batman and Superman, there was no excuse for this to gross 1 billion.

Problem with the creative freedom is that you end up with something like Wonder Woman 1984. Patty Jenkins had the freedom to do what she wanted because the first film was a hit. The second one not so.

[Gunsnroses092789]

Originally Posted by cheecheung

I see gross $877 million on Box Office Mojo. On a $250 million budget they needed to make $500 million to make their budget back at the cinema as cinemas take 50% cut, then they would have spent $100-150 million to market this if not more. So that leaves them with $227 million profit. Considering we’re talking about this film having Batman and Superman, there was no excuse for this to gross 1 billion.

Problem with the creative freedom is that you end up with something like Wonder Woman 1984. Patty Jenkins had the freedom to do what she wanted because the first film was a hit. The second one not so.

Your math is a bit off.

BvS grossed approx. $874m. So half of that goes to the theater, and the half that gets kicked back to the studio is $437m. The film cost $250 to produce, so subtract that: now down to $187. Let's say they spent $150 on marketing. Now we're down to $37m "profit." Does anyone involved have profit participation? As far as the box office is concerned, it was a very small profit. And then they had additional revenue from home video, tv, cable, streaming, on-demand, etc... I would say it was an underwhelming success for them.

[cheecheung]

Originally Posted by Gunsnroses092789

Your math is a bit off.

BvS grossed approx. $874m. So half of that goes to the theater, and the half that gets kicked back to the studio is $437m. The film cost $250 to produce, so subtract that: now down to $187. Let's say they spent $150 on marketing. Now we're down to $37m "profit." Does anyone involved have profit participation? As far as the box office is concerned, it was a very small profit. And then they had additional revenue from home video, tv, cable, streaming, on-demand, etc... I would say it was an underwhelming success for them.

Yes thanks for correcting me. I shouldn’t have taken into account the whole box office as that’s 50%.

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by StuPod

Weren't most of the problems people had with BvS to do with the way it was cut for the theatrical release? I still haven't actually seen the movie but isn't the Ultimate Cut considered a significant improvement?

Only for people who already liked it: its user ratings on sites like IMDB dropped further after the extended version came out.

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by cheecheung

But if they didn’t like Snyder’s cut of the Justice League script they wouldn’t have made it or they would have told him to change it. I read that they watched parts of the Snyder cut and they just didn’t like the cut. It was probably why Whedon had changed most of it. It was the publicity that helped Snyder get this cut out.

It was overoptimistic scheduling. They had gone on record stating MoS would be the biggest hit in the studio's history and when it barely broke even they ended up scrapping MoS2. They went from trying to get a Christian Bale extended cameo in that to improve its chances to reviving BvS, and because they thought BvS would be an unmitigated triumph that would launch the DCEU they scheduled the start of shooting JL for just two weeks after BvS opened to ride the share price boost they thought they'd get from what they thought was a guaranteed $1b+ (significantly plus: it was supposed to be their Avengers) hit.

When BvS' OW underperformed even with Warners controversially including the opening Thursday as part of the weekend to boost the numbers to try to set a new record, which led to a massive 69.1% second weekend drop (where most films do a third of their business OW, BvS did just over half) and was slated and the much-mocked "Save Martha" became the derisive meme of the year, they left themselves with no time to respond to the poor reaction.They pushed the start back a couple of weeks to make some quick fixes, but if they shut down for the months they really needed they'd have had another Tim Burton Superman Lives $50 writeoff as they'd have to pay off the above the liners who'd cleared their schedules to make it,with a potential big ht on the share price as well So they tried to fix it on the fly, which rarely works, especially on $250-300m films.

They tried to Pot Noodle an entire DCEU franchise - just add boiling water and you're ready to go in three minutes - while Marvel spent years building theirs. They paid the price for rushing it and not factoring in time to respond to audience feedback. That said, I honestly believe Snyder's JL would have done even worse at the boxoffice than Whedon's.

[Buddy Ackerman]

Originally Posted by Gunsnroses092789

Your math is a bit off.

BvS grossed approx. $874m. So half of that goes to the theater, and the half that gets kicked back to the studio is $437m. The film cost $250 to produce, so subtract that: now down to $187. Let's say they spent $150 on marketing. Now we're down to $37m "profit." Does anyone involved have profit participation? As far as the box office is concerned, it was a very small profit. And then they had additional revenue from home video, tv, cable, streaming, on-demand, etc... I would say it was an underwhelming success for them.

Deadline did a thorough breakdown - BvS turned a profit of roughly $105m, all things considered. Solid (and the 13th biggest profit of the year) but definitely below what it could and should have been.

[BudBaxter]

Originally Posted by DrWally

Whatever problems BVS may have had for some audiences, Snyder should have been allowed to finish what he started without the executive interference.

Snyder left because of a family tragedy. By that point the production was in full swing so Whedon was brought in to finish it.

[dallywhitty]

Originally Posted by BudBaxter

Snyder left because of a family tragedy. By that point the production was in full swing so Whedon was brought in to finish it.

Whedon was brought on-board even before Snyder left, under the pretence of 'just writing a couple of scenes.' It quickly became clear that WB were giving Whedon more control and Snyder obviously wasn't in the right state of mind at the time to combat them, so he left.

[DrWally]

Originally Posted by cheecheung

I see gross $877 million on Box Office Mojo. On a $250 million budget they needed to make $500 million to make their budget back at the cinema as cinemas take 50% cut, then they would have spent $100-150 million to market this if not more. So that leaves them with $227 million profit. Considering we’re talking about this film having Batman and Superman, there was no excuse for this to gross 1 billion.

Problem with the creative freedom is that you end up with something like Wonder Woman 1984. Patty Jenkins had the freedom to do what she wanted because the first film was a hit. The second one not so.

You're slightly missing the point. Which is that the outcome of BVS was still better than that of the outcome of that of the interfered Justice League. By far. Had Snyder been left alone, JL as released would at least have done better, but we'll never know for sure.

And creative freedom is never a problem. Ever. It's how filmmaking is supposed to work, not rule by committee or by trying to appease angry dorks by second guessing. We will never know how WW84 would have fared with audiences under normal circumstances and with a normal release pattern, so projecting your own personal dislike of the movie into a broad conclusion of it 'not being a hit' is unfair.

[Buddy Ackerman]

Originally Posted by DrWally

Had Snyder been left alone, JL as released would at least have done better, but we'll never know for sure.

We don't know for sure, you're right, but your idea that it would have done "at least" better than Justice League suggests that everyone hated Justice League and would have enjoyed a Snyder version more when the critical consensus (40% RT) and Cinemascore (B+) of Justice League compared to BvS (28% RT / B Cinemascore) doesn't back that up.

It didn't fail because people hated it (it was too mediocre to be hated - most people watched it, shrugged and moved on). It failed because people hadn't connected with those characters in previous films and so didn't come out to watch it - even with the Wonder Woman boost. The idea that doubling down on the Snyderness would have made it a bigger hit doesn't sound realistic (whether it would have been a better film or not, we'll never know - the Snyder Cut may give us an idea but it's still not the film that would have been released in 2017 even if everything had gone according to plan)

[BudBaxter]

Originally Posted by DrWally

Had Snyder been left alone, JL as released would at least have done better, but we'll never know for sure.

Again, he didn't leave because of 'Studio Interference'. He left because his daughter died & he was in no shape to continue making a movie.

[cheecheung]

Originally Posted by DrWally

You're slightly missing the point. Which is that the outcome of BVS was still better than that of the outcome of that of the interfered Justice League. By far. Had Snyder been left alone, JL as released would at least have done better, but we'll never know for sure.

And creative freedom is never a problem. Ever. It's how filmmaking is supposed to work, not rule by committee or by trying to appease angry dorks by second guessing. We will never know how WW84 would have fared with audiences under normal circumstances and with a normal release pattern, so projecting your own personal dislike of the movie into a broad conclusion of it 'not being a hit' is unfair.

Wonder Woman is a better film than the sequel. Not talking about numbers, due to the pandemic and how Warner decided to release it in cinemas and then HBO Max. The critics and the audience scored Wonder Woman higher.

Snyder only left because of his daughter’s suicide. We won’t know for sure if his cut of Justice League would have done better. The release coming even if it does do better than Whedon’s release won’t prove it since it’s 4 hours long and it wouldn’t have been this long at the cinemas.