"Snyder Cut" News

There has been much talk about this alleged Snyder cut of the Justice League. Zack Snyder has been preaching for years that the “Justice League'' placed in cinemas around the world by Warner is not the “Justice League” that he created. Initially, I believed that Snyder was trying to distance himself from the nearly unwatchable film. I did put some merit in his comments because the director’s cut of “Batman V. Superman” did make a lot more sense than the theatrical release.  

When HBO Max was announced the rumors of the “Snyder Cut” being featured on the platform soon followed. At the beginning, there was much speculation about what the “Snyder Cut” would contain. Finally, Snyder himself started to weigh in on his version of “Justice League.” One of the more shocking statements was that the theatrical release was not even his product. Snyder stated that the “Justice League” that was seen across the world, was actually the product of Joss Whedon. Snyder insists that so much of the film was changed that it almost does not contain any original shots from Synder.  

This should come as no surprise to those of you that are familiar with Warner and the films that they produce. Warner has always been focused on the bottom line and what can make the most profit. It is called show business for a reason. Ultimately, movie making is still a business and Warner wants to profit as much as possible from their films. Unfortunately, that means that sacrifices need to be made. One way that Warner tried to reduce costs in “Justice League” was reducing the length of the film to a maximum of 2 hours. This is a prime example of the idiocrasy that takes place within the ivory tower at Warner. “Justice League” was created to be Warner's answer to “Avengers.” “Justice League” was going to lay out the DC Extended Universe for years to come. This means that the talking heads at Warner thought that a single two hour feature film could contain enough character development and backstory to set-up an entire extended universe the same way four films did for Marvel. That alone should be enough evidence to justify my argument that the Batman Franchise and The DC Extended Universe will forever be doomed while Warner is involved. 

One of my friends did send the following comment found on Reddit: 

“Some frequent questions I've seen coming up is what's different with this version to the 2017 version of Justice League.

Zack Snyder shot 5 hours of assembly footage during principle photography in 2016. From that, he edited it to 214 mins(3.5 hours) and was happy to call it his director's cut. From this, he was happy to edit it down to 3 hours for the theatrical cut, and release the 3.5 hour directors cut in Blu-ray.

But WB wanted Zack Snyder to cut it to 2 hours for the theatrical cut. Which is unbelievable, since cutting 1.5 hours from a 3.5 hour movie would make it extremely unwatchable and make absolutely no sense. Snyder tried his best to negotiate with WB to release a longer cut, even made a 2.5 hour cut, which was extremely compromised and makes no sense, but WB wasn't happy. This was when Snyder suffered a family tragedy and lost the will to fight with WB for the longer cut.

He stepped down and WB(Geoff Johns) used this opportunity to hire Joss Whedon, and use the 2 months of reshoots to reshoot almost the entire film. He wrote 88 pages of reshoots, which translates to almost 90 mins of the final movie.

The original cinematographer, Fabian Wagner, and later Snyder confirmed that only 30 mins of the theatrical cut of Justice League had shots by Zack Snyder, and even those were heavily edited. The rest were shot by Joss Whedon.

So Zack Snyder's Justice League releasing next month, which is 4 hours, will contain at minimum 3.5 hours of footage we never saw.

The only new idea is the 4 mins of new footage he shot recently with Jared Leto and Joe Mangeniello, which he added since he wanted this universe's Batman and Joker meet at least once. Other than that, it's all shot in 2016.”

 Unfortunately, I do not have the source of the comment. However, I did some minor research through different articles and it appears that the comment has factual information. 

That reddit comment has my excitement level rising for the “Snyder Cut.” From the sounds of it Snyder’s “Justice League” will be a completely different film than the one that was originally released. It would be nearly impossible to make a worse film than was released by Warner, so I am ready for this version to be released. The advertised release date is March 18th of this year and it cannot come soon enough.  

The Beginning

 “Arkham Weekly” is a brain child that I dreamt up one day as I sat reading the final installment of “Dark Nights: Metal.” With the “Future State” event launched in the DC universe and HBO Max taking on the DC Extended Universe, I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to start sharing my thoughts on different storylines in the comics as well as what is happening within the DCEU.  As the name of the blog suggests, this blog will focus specifically on the storylines and DCEU aspects of the Bat Family and their “Villains.” The goal is to have a new update each week, where I discuss different storylines I have read or entertainment items that I have watched. I will not be giving a complete summary, but rather what my thoughts are about what I read or watched. Before I start diving into “Future State” and those new storylines and the news that has dropped about the DCEU, I want to give my background on how I was introduced to comics and where I found my love for the Bat Family storylines. 

Let us start with my love for the Batman and the Bat Family comics. Right about the time I was hitting the age where children start to “get into” super heroes is when “Batman Returns” was released. As a younger child, I do not remember going to the theaters to see the film, but I do remember seeing it in my living room because of the little “black box” that allowed my household to get all the movie channels. After “Batman Returns,” Warner Brother’s was more concerned about making as much money as possible instead of putting out a quality product. This led to the Batman films of the 90s, which were great for a young fan like myself, but terrible for the true Batman fans. As I reflect back on my childhood, I was the reason that Warner did whatever they could to commercialize the Batman Franchise. I was the kid that had all the Batman branded toys. As I grew older the toys found their way to garage sales and such, but my love for the Dark Knight never ceased. 

Then came the mid 2000s, and by luck I presume, Christopher Nolan signed on to do a Batman trilogy. I was a skeptic when I heard the announcement. At this point, I was nearly college aged and the films that fueled my passion in the 90s, now seemed childish. Unless you have been living under a rock, you are aware of the success of that trilogy. Sure the third movie had some opportunities, but Nolan had to adjust quickly to make up for the absence of Heath Ledger. In my opinion, the Dark Knight is the best superhero film that has ever been made. I will save the rest of my views on how Warner ruined Batman Films for another day. 

Anyways, while the Nolan trilogy was happening, I would hear my friends discuss the different Batman storylines that influenced the films. These were friends that read and had knowledge of the Batman comics. If you noticed during this explanation of my love for Batman, I have not mentioned anything about comics. That is because at this point in my journey, I have not started reading comics. When I would hear my friends discuss the comics, I was always very interested about what they were discussing and how the whole comic book universe worked. To be honest, I was intimidated about getting into this universe. 

Fast forward several years, right around the time that the first “DeadPool” finally starts production, I am at work and I overhear one of my team members discussing the DeadPool comics. I discussed, with him, how I have always been interested in comics, but did not know how to enter the universe. He kindly let me borrow some of the volumes of DeadPool that he owned. That was enough to get me hooked and get me in the door of the comic universe.  

The next step was how to get out of the trades and into the new weekly issues.. I lucked out because right about the time that I wanted to get into issues is when the “Metals” event was happening in the DC universe. However, every time I went to the comic shop closest to my apartment, they were always out of the latest issue and the clerk looked at me like I was some idiot when I asked if they had the issue. I did some more research and found a comic shop that had just opened, but was a little further away. As soon as I walked in, they were very accommodating and asked me if I would like to set up a pull list. That started the journey which has led me here.  

I have been heavily involved in the Bat Family comics for the past 5 years. I thought that it is an appropriate time to start sharing my thoughts on the direction that the writers are taking the storylines. Currently, the “Future State” event is happening within the DC universe. There are some new storylines that are coming out for the Bat Family that appear to be very interesting. 

Along with the new events happening in the comic universe of DC there are the events that are happening with the cinematic DC universe with the arrival of HBO Max. I made it clear how I felt about what Warner has done to the cinematic universe. I am optimistic that HBO will repair the damage and I will share my thoughts on films and series as they are released. 

My goal is to send out this blog weekly, thus the title, and share my thoughts on the different issues, films, episodes, and rumors . The blog will contain spoilers, but will not be a complete recap. I will give a brief summary of the item that I am covering, and give my thoughts on the topic. My goal is to have this blog simulcasted with a podcast that covers what is written in each blog. With all that being said, I hope that you find this blog interesting and thought provoking.