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Even DC’s most destructive disaster becoming a success couldn’t have saved the SnyderVerse

The DCEU was already dead in the water.

The Justice League
Image via Warner Bros.

It’s pretty much agreed that Zack Snyder’s Justice League is a superior product in comparison to what Warner Bros. actually decided to release, but the real question is would it have been enough to save the SnyderVerse?

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The debate has been raging on in the DC Cinematic subreddit as fans ponder what could have been. When the theatrical cut of Justice League released in cinemas, it was a notorious flop. Joss Whedon’s additions didn’t really do much for the film, and WB’s interference was the final nail in the coffin for the DCEU. It’s interesting to look back in hindsight and imagine just what the film’s reception would have been if the studio had stuck to Snyder’s original vision.

Of course, not even the fans of the Snyder cut could delude themselves as far into believing that his grand vision would have been able to pull the franchise out of its rut. As passionate and dedicated as Snyder is, his film still has plenty of flaws. This coupled with the studio’s unwillingness to give him the creative freedom he desired meant that it probably wouldn’t have done much better than the film we got.

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by u/Puzzleheaded_Walk_28 from discussion Do you think that Zack Snyder Justice League’s success would have been enough to save the DCEU?
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It’s also worthy of note that Snyder’s original cut isn’t the same as the four-hour monster that was released back in 2021. The director had the benefit of hindsight and was able to tweak and straight up add in completely new scenes (like the nightmare dream sequence at the end). So it would have still been quite a different film had it released in 2017; would it have been better or worse than ZSJL? Who’s to say? All we know is that it makes it even harder to speculate on how the film would have done back in 2017.

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by u/anthayashi from discussion Do you think that Zack Snyder Justice League’s success would have been enough to save the DCEU?
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Fans generally agreed that while the Snyder cut would have maybe gotten a better reception, it wouldn’t have been enough to save the sinking ship that was the DCEU. Factors like the poor performance of Batman Vs. Superman meant that people weren’t as open to the Justice League as WB hoped. The whole ordeal felt a bit rushed; the real villain here is the studio and its poor decisions.

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by u/kush125289 from discussion Do you think that Zack Snyder Justice League’s success would have been enough to save the DCEU?
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The film’s length would have also been a major detriment to its release as WB would have never let a film as long as it was be released into the wild; who’s got the time and stamina to sit in a movie theater for four hours?

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by u/Altman_e from discussion Do you think that Zack Snyder Justice League’s success would have been enough to save the DCEU?
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Not all fans thought the same way, though, with at least one being of the firm belief that ZSJL would have saved the DCEU — in fact, it probably would have saved cinema as a whole, stopped the Coronavirus, and brought about world peace.

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by u/turgunculis from discussion Do you think that Zack Snyder Justice League’s success would have been enough to save the DCEU?
in DC_Cinematic

In the end, no matter how much of an improvement Snyder’s cut was, it just wouldn’t have been enough to save the DCEU. It hurts to say, but the whole thing was practically doomed from the start.