Not even a week has passed since Roberto Mata launched his online appeal and already, the Change.org petition for a director’s cut of Justice League has blown past 100,000 signatures.
At the time of writing, more than 116,000 people have pledged their support, with the next target being 150,000. That’s a staggering number by anyone’s standards, and proves that when it comes to Justice League‘s potential director’s cut – one that would purportedly include all of the deleted scenes that leaked online late last night – fans won’t rest until Zack Snyder’s initial vision is restored.
And similar to the Ultimate Edition of Batman V Superman, Snyder’s untampered cut is said to be three hours in length, and includes a raft of additional cameos. We’ll refrain from identifying those big-name characters here, just in case you’ve yet to catch Justice League on the big screen.
Indeed, the original plea from Mata, which has since gained the backing of Justice League cinematographer Fabian Wagner, takes particular issue with the film’s score, after Warner Bros. decided to recruit Danny Elfman in place of Antonius Tom Holkenborg (AKA Junkie XL).
…it’s understandable that the visionary filmmaker [Snyder] doesn’t own the rights to the film and that he stepped down for understandable, tragic and heartbreaking reasons, but fans deserve better the version the director always intended, than half a film, given that they are the movie-paying audience and from a business standpoint it makes sense that the studio will want to cut the film…but the petition [is not asking WB] to take the film out of theaters; the petition is to ask Warner Bros. to release Zack Snyder’s director’s cut, together with Tom Holkenborg’s (Junkie XL) score on home release.
Seven days after its initial release, and Justice League is said to be staring down the face of a $50m-$100m loss. Forbes did the number crunching earlier this week and revealed that Warner’s DC epic must collect $600 million in ticket sales alone if it’s to make it into the black – JL‘s production budget ballooned past $250m, no thanks to Joss Whedon’s extensive reshoots. That will certainly cast a big shadow over the DCEU, whose next film, Aquaman, is poised to hit theaters on December 21st, 2018.