It's finally here: the long-awaited Zack Snyder Cut of Justice League will finally available on HBO Max soon and fans can finally drink in all 4 hours of the director's original vision for the superhero team-up epic. The first reviews and impressions of Zack Snyder's Justice League are still coming in, but whatever people think, Snyder's vision is finally out there for the world to see.
That said, the director has talked frequently about the very long road it has taken to get to this moment. As hardcore fans of the DC film universe no doubt are aware, it can be a battle trying to produce a film that the studio is happy with, and over the course of that process, the length of the film is a big sticking point for both sides.
When asked about his opinion of a film's runtime, Snyder suggested that every sequel should be about 20 minutes longer than its predecessor, remarking that he felt Batman v Superman should be 20 minutes longer than Man of Steel and Justice League should be 20 minutes longer than Batman v Superman, as a rule of thumb. Now that Snyder's Justice League clocks in at just over 4 hours, no one can say he hasn't lived up to that standard.
While Snyder admits that such a great length for a film is a bit 'indulgent,' he also revealed to The New York Times that there was an even longer cut of the film prepared at one point, among others: "The truth is there’s probably about 10 Snyder cuts — there’s a longer version than the four-hour version." He elaborates that he showed the studio various cuts of Justice League, including a 3-hour version, as well as multiple versions that run for around 2 hours and 20 minutes.
It goes to show that there's a lot of experimenting and tweaking done in the process of any film, not to mention one that ends up at the 4-hour mark. Snyder went on to say that he believes studios sell their audiences short and that they are able and willing to digest larger films with longer runtimes: "It really shows that the consumer is not wrong in a lot of ways. 'They can’t handle anything over two hours, they’re going to lose their minds.' They were underestimated, the audience themselves."
He certainly has a lot of evidence in his corner given the huge hype and celebration around the Snyder Cut's release. It would seem that, if the right talent is behind the camera, audiences are absolutely willing to sit down and watch for a length of time that would have been unthinkable a few decades ago. Whether that kind of film length could find mainstream success in a non-streaming marketplace, however, is a question that has yet to be answered.
Zack Snyder's Justice League will be released on HBO Max in the U.S. and other means worldwide on March 18, 2021.
Source: The New York Times