In 2009, I exited a screening of Zack Snyder’s Watchmen thinking Warner Bros. should put Snyder in charge of developing an entire shared DC cinematic universe akin to what Marvel Studios was setting up. Watchmen is a true masterpiece in the superhero film genre, representing a perfect visual and tonal approach for also adapting the larger array of DC Comics superheroes. After 2013’s Man of Steel, I was convinced Snyder was the right person for the job. And now, Zack Snyder’s Justice League has arrived as the living embodiment of the larger DC Universe.
Official poster for "Zack Snyder's Justice League"
There are no immediate box office details to discuss, since the film is releasing on HBO Max, but there are still some interesting financial details to consider. Firstly, if the critical reception and audience reactions are good enough (and I am pretty sure they will be, which I’ll discuss shortly), then might Warner consider a limited theatrical run in Dolby Cinemas and IMAX theaters?
When theaters start reopening to actual safe attendance, there is going to be some initial reluctance rather than a mad dash for seats. One way theaters can maximize initial openings post-pandemic [note: I believe the current reopening attempt has a strong chance of causing a new surge of COVID cases, leading to renewed lockdowns] is to screen films that have a loyal and eager fanbase likely to attract a good audience. Zack Snyder’s Justice League (or ZSJL, as it’s referred to by fans on social media, and as I’ll refer to it here to save time and space) is exactly such a film. A single week or weekend of screenings would generate millions of dollars, for very little effort by the studio.
The bigger question about financials is how much ZSJL might drive HBO Max subscriptions. For that, we’ll have to largely rely on anecdotal claims among the fans, plus the word of the studio itself if/when they announce any numbers related to it. My guess is a lot of DC fans who hadn’t already subscribed yet to HBO Max will do so in the days leading up to — and immediately after — release of ZSJL.
Likewise, the even bigger question is whether mainstream viewers who aren’t already Snyder fans of DC fans will be motivated to tune in. And to answer that, I have to get into the review of the film itself, because I believe ZSJL is going to be a big hit with mainstream audiences who will be shocked at how great the film is, confused by why the previous studio leadership refused to release it (and why they released a far lesser version of the film in theaters), and most of all eager to see more of this story.
So I expect HBO Max to announce high subscriber numbers surrounding the release of ZSJL, and it helps that it arrives just a week before the HBO Max premiere of Godzilla vs. Kong, which will surely also drive subscriptions. All of this press coverage and marketing combines in general to help further remind audiences about HBO Max and all of the reasons to subscribe.
Yes, some fans insist they’ll just sign up to HBO Max to watch Zack Snyder’s Justice League, but will they really unsubscribe after seeing it, rendering themselves unable to rewatch it at will? Will they skip all of the other DC content on HBO Max as well? Will they risk creating the impression that Snyder’s vision for DC didn’t sustain subscriptions and thus decrease the chances the studio might rethink their decision about making a sequel to ZSJL or doing other spinoffs set within the “Snyderverse?”
I think a large number of fans and general audience who subscribe primarily for ZSJL will stick around, to rewatch it and to see the other content on the streaming service, and in hopes of sending a loud message that more “Snyderverse” will correspond with more subscribers for a longer time.
Consider for a moment that HBO Max is expected to reach 150 million subscriber activations by 2025. That would generate more than $2 billion in revenue per month, give or take. Another way of thinking about it is, imagine if WB released two films topping $1 billion in theaters every single month of the year. Forever.
Even a conservative estimate of 100 million subscribers at a lowball monthly rate of $10 would put the studio over $1 billion every month from subscription revenue. The point being, while overhead and other costs do eat into that, it ultimately signifies how much more lucrative direct-to-consumer streaming options are for studios capable of competing at that scale (20th Century Fox for example determined over time they wouldn’t be able to compete at the scale necessary to remain a dominant studio force in the changing landscape, so they sold to Disney).
As I’ve pointed out before, streaming content requires smaller budgets and far smaller marketing expenditures, and they can reach a larger audience wherever the audience happens to be at any given moment. No theatrical middle-men who take 40-50% of the revenue, just straight to consumers.
If ZSJL can drive business to HBO Max, then it more than justifies its existence and speaks to the need for Warner to look for ways to bring more big-branded content exclusively to the streaming platform, so viewers showing up for one such show have added incentives to stick around.
Now, let’s get to the main event — why Zack Snyder’s Justice League is the ultimate DC superhero film!
The short version of my review is simple: ZSJL exceeds whatever lofty expectations fans had for the project, it overcomes the objections and complaints of naysayers, and it delivers the Justice League movie everybody always hoped for. It’s more emotionally resonant, more exciting, more meaningful, and smarter than even someone like me — a longtime fan of Snyder’s work and of his particular vision for the DCEU — thought it would be (and trust me, we already had high hopes).
Some fast points to make — this is not the same movie as the theatrical cut. Yes, they share several of the same big action sequences, but the theatrical version edited those scenes down to smaller scale (a bizarre choice) and shorter length, and just strung together a sort of “greatest hits” compilation of primary action scenes. In between came the new footage providing as thin and brief a connective tissue as possible, gutting the character arcs and subplots and even the main stakes and ideas behind what remains.
I haven’t rewatched the theatrical cut in a while, but I think roughly an hour or so of footage you saw in the theatrical version is found in ZSJL, albeit with a much larger scale (for example, Whedon turned a Snyder scene featuring all of the heroes amid a military standoff into just the heroes and one cop). The rest of ZSJL — three more hours of content, give or take — is stuff you haven’t seen before. And no, it’s not merely filler or incoherent or any of the other claims you’ve heard. There are entire character arcs and major subplots that drive the story.
Imagine taking the four or five major violent outburst scenes from The Godfather and stringing them together, then writing new scenes in-between to quickly tie them together in a 90 minute story, and imagine if you removed Michael’s arc and instead made Sonny the focus of your scenes. Would you insist the original version of the film is just your short version with some “deleted scenes?” Or would you say it substantively changes the film and the real guts and heart of the whole story? Probably the latter, if you understand storytelling, structure, and filmmaking.
It’s more accurate to say the two versions of Justice League seem like two different artists made two different films based on the basic story synopsis — Batman and Wonder Woman assemble a team while Steppenwolf gathers Mother Boxes from Amazons and Atlanteans and S.T.A.R. Labs, and the heroes revive Superman for a final confrontation to stop Steppenwolf before he uses the Mother Boxes to destroy Earth. But beyond the use of the same handful of major action scenes scaled down and shortened, almost everything about how they set up and tell the story is different.
One of the most significant differences — and among the most important components of ZSJL’s greatness — is the fact Cyborg is the main character.
We see Victor Stone’s life before, during, and after the horrible accident that took his mother’s life and almost killed him. We see his alienation from his father, we see his father’s crushing guilt over what happened, we see how and why his father sought to use a Mother Box to turn Victor into Cyborg, we see Cyborg learning to use his powers, we see him dazzle his teammates with his skills. We see Cyborg’s past and present juxtaposed with Superman’s own life, and the unmistakable similarities and contrasts.
In other words, Ray Fisher’s exceptional star turn set up a remarkably emotional and exciting foundation for a Cyborg franchise. And then it was ripped out and unceremoniously discarded. Victor’s entire arc was turned into “angsty teenager who resents his dad for turning him into a superhero, but he gets over it pretty quick and OH LOOK THERE”S BATMAN!”
I won’t say much more about the character arcs, since the fact there ARE real fully-developed arcs is one of the many reasons to watch ZSJL, but I do want to add that even Steppenwolf has a real arc this time. The villain gets emotional, he has ulterior motives, and the bigger plan is in fact DIFFERENT from the theatrical cut — the Mother Boxes and “destroy Earth” plot changes into something else, something bigger, so for what it’s worth even the basic simple version of the story does in fact change from one version to the next, a point too many reviews seem to have either not noticed or don’t bother addressing since it undermines the claim that ZSJL offers little/nothing really new other than deleted scenes and longer versions of scenes.
Chris Terrio once again packs so much intelligence, heart, soul, and excitement into his script, it’s an insult to suggest it’s the same as a gutted rewritten theatrical version.
Divided into roughly 35 minute chapters, each section has its own three-act structure, each section tends to single out a hero for focus, each section includes terrific action beats and powerful character development, and each section expands the DC world further. Oh, and there’s music — lots of very cool music, set to gorgeous scenes and montages.
The chapter approach works on two primary levels, first to break the story up into thematic crests and troughs to make the pacing feel tighter and constantly build momentum as the crests get higher and the troughs shallower. The other advantage of the chapter breaks is how much it plays directly into modern streaming preferences — we’ve all grown accustomed to binging entire seasons of a show or miniseries, or at least several episodes at a time.
I’ll be interested to see how many folks currently bashing ZSJL for its length are the same people who regularly endorse binging other content. It’s one thing if a film or show is just easier to binge than another. But the critiques I keep seeing just hone in on the broad claim of “it’s too long” in simplistic terms, treating the length — or the music and montages — as if they are inherently self-indulgent and a waste of time.
Suffice to say, if you’re watching other half-hour or hour-long episodes of a miniseries and praising it, it’s going to be hard to insist these 35 minute chapters featuring action, music, and lots of strong character development are somehow bloated and too long.
The chapter breaks make it possible to take bathroom breaks, to grab a drink or something to eat, or to break up the viewing however you prefer. While I recommend watching it straight through the first time, I also have the advantage of being able to sit at home all day for four hours watching and rewatching a movie/show, so if you aren’t so lucky then I promise you can keep up with the plot as easily as you would any other film or streaming series if you need to divide the viewing up over a few days.
It’s a testament to how crazy-good ZSJL is, that you might intend to split it up into several sittings, but you’ll probably have a hard time stopping it, because it’s just so damned entertaining and fun — yes, the word “fun” does indeed apply to Snyder’s film, as does the even more dreaded f-word “funny.”
Visually, the difference between the films is dramatic. Joss Whedon’s cut is very obviously made fast and on a cheaper budget, and however much you think this difference will stand out when you watch ZSJL, I promise you it’ll be more intense than you dreamed. It’s pointless to try describing the difference, aside from saying it’s like the difference between looking at a plain photo of a sunset in the suburbs, and actually standing in person on a beach in Bali watching the sun go down.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League is simply the best-looking DC superhero film I’ve ever seen. Not just the action — every second of which is huge, thrilling, and gorgeous — but the smaller moments, the slower moments, are crafted with such care and consideration as to be breathtaking. My reaction was similar to how I felt watch Avengers: Infinity War, which is the best-looking Marvel film and features spectacular beauty and endless ambition. Cinematographer Fabian Wagner should’ve (and I’d argue would’ve) been an Oscar contender, had ZSJL gone to theaters (as it should have back in 2017 or 2018, but that’s something I’ll discuss at length in another article coming very soon).
It’s worth noting that the screener I watched was not in Dolby Vision, which is the highest quality presentation there is. It will, however, stream in Dolby Vision on HBO Max upon release this Thursday, and I can’t wait to see how much even more glorious it looks and sounds. I will include an updated discussion about this in my upcoming articles after ZSJL premiers, but for now just know this is the sort of film capable of demonstrating the full greatness of Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, and why I’ve long told fans it’s the best way to experience these superhero films.
I’ll have yet another article ranking all of the DCEU films to date, but let me spoil it somewhat right here by saying Zack Snyder’s Justice League is the best DCEU movie. And that brings me back to my original statement — ZSJL is not just the best DCEU movie, but in terms of representing what DC Comics truly feel like, what the world of DC truly is and should be, and what a true live-action page-to-screen DC Comics universe would look like, ZSJL is the ideal version of the DC Comics world come to life.
Zack Snyder has delivered far more than just a redemptive example of his vision. He has silenced the naysayers, he has proven that his ambition extended beyond what most of his detractors and then-leadership at Warner could fathom. It’s only now, after seeing Zack Snyder’s Justice League, that many viewers will be able to look back at Batman v Superman and see what Zack always saw and intended for this series. Knowing where it was headed, now you can go back and better understand what the filmmaker was doing in the previous films.
Many of us recognized it (or at least parts of it) at the time, but still without fully appreciating just how expansive and incredible the end result would be when the League finally arrived. But even if you still don’t really like or appreciate the earlier films, it won’t detract from your ability to be drawn into and love Zack Snyder’s Justice League. Because it contains everything you need to know and consider and feel, and it’s an added bonus if you also feel compelled to revisit the extended/ultimate cut of Batman v Superman and have an “ah ha” moment about the connective tissue and ways in which Snyder was setting the stage for something transcendent.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League is brilliant and brave, smart and complicated, hopeful and inspiring. Snyder is a great filmmaker and a wonderful storyteller, and he should be immensely proud to have created another masterpiece in the superhero genre. Hallelujah.
