The continuity of the DCEU has been loose to put it lightly, with only Zack Snyder’s efforts going to any great lengths to tie themselves into a wider mythology.
Patty Jenkins neatly sidestepped any obstacles by setting both of her Wonder Woman movies in the past, Shazam! playfully upended the conventions of existing in a shared universe by having lead Billy Batson be a huge Batman and Superman fanboy, and if you hadn’t met several of the characters before, then there’s not much to indicate that Aquaman exists in the same timeline as something like Justice League.
The canonical status of the Snyder Cut has come under intense scrutiny from the fanbase, especially when Jenkins revealed that neither she nor the rest of the franchise’s directors considered it to be an official part of the series, but Snyder also admitted that his brand new version of Justice League isn’t necessarily canonical, either, although the fans would appear to disagree.
As much as it surely pains him to say it after he’s said in the past that he has no intentions of ever watching the theatrical edition and he hasn’t used a single shred of footage from it to cobble together his four-hour epic, in a new interview, Snyder confirmed that Whedon’s Justice League is official canon, and his take on the movie is not.
“I said, I famously said, and it’s true, this is not saying anything, this isn’t controversial. But you know, Warner Bros, is it, that this film, my Justice League, is not canon, right? Canon for Warner Bros. is the Joss Whedon version of Justice League, right? That’s, in their mind, that’s canon. And what I’m doing is not. Everything is not. So it’s just an interesting, that relationship. And I’m fine with it because I feel like the only way that I could have made this film with autonomy was because of that, because of me admitting and agreeing to the fact that it is not canon.”
Of course, that’s not going to stop anyone from viewing the Snyder Cut as the definitive version of Justice League from here on out, but Snyder’s admission does open the door to some unexpected twists and turns throughout the HBO Max exclusive, ones that more than likely won’t end up getting paid off in the future.