Zack Snyder has already confirmed that Joss Whedon’s Justice League is DCEU canon and his version of the movie is not, while he’s also admitted that neither he nor Warner Bros. have any plans for a sequel, but that hasn’t stopped a bevy of rumors from making the rounds that say it’s going to happen anyway.
When you factor in production, marketing and advertising expenses, the entire Justice League saga from start to finish has cost the studio well over $500 million, but as of yet, they haven’t seen a single penny of profit, and it would take a serious surge in HBO Max subscriber numbers to change that, especially when the Snyder Cut isn’t exactly coming equipped with an extensive line of tie-in merchandise to recoup some extra revenue.
Funnelling half a billion dollars into a project without seeing any sort of financial return is bad business no matter which way you want to look at it, which is why the prospect of a Justice League sequel feels as unlikely now as it did three and a half years ago when Joss Whedon’s theatrical edition bombed at the box office. However, we’ve heard on countless occasions that the DCEU’s all-star team could be reassembled depending on how the Snyder Cut fares, and the speculation has inevitably intensified the closer we get to next Thursday’s debut.
The latest addition to the rumor mill claims that Justice League 2 is in active development, with an eye to being an HBO Max exclusive, and the project will reportedly be created outside the purview of Walter Hamada, despite his status as DC Films president. As always, it’s best not to take it as gospel, but once the dust settles on the Snyder Cut, we’ll have a much better idea of what the future holds.