Justice League Was Apparently Micromanaged Even More Than We Thought
Even director Joss Whedon “lost” a number of battles with the studio.
>When Joss Whedon was hired by Warner Bros. to help Zack Snyder re-shape the superhero cross-over film Justice League, the news came with an extra layer of significance. Whedon once served directer of two of Marvel Studios’ Avengers films and acted in a supervisory capacity for several more. His departure from that studio, after a well-publicized creative battle over Avengers: Age of Ultron, wasn’t an entirely pleasant one. Would Whedon’s new home at the rival comic book studio offer him what Marvel couldn’t: complete creative control? According to a new report, the answer—at least when it comes to Justice League—is: not quite.
Why? Like, does Joss Whedon like the Joel Schumaker movies or something?
Jason Bell
When Whedon first signed on to help with Justice League, Snyder was still working on the project. The Batman v. Superman director then exited entirely due to a family tragedy—leaving Whedon to complete the project. Justice League producer Charles Roven told The Washington Times that Whedon re-shot “15, 20 percent of the movie,” but some rumors (and the tell-tale digitally-altered lip on star Henry Cavill) indicate Whedon’s contributions may have been much higher. He certainly had the unenviable task of creating a coherent narrative while, thanks to the studio’s order to bring Justice League in under two hours, hacking nearly an hour of Snyder’s original footage out of the completed project.
Though he goes uncredited as a co-director, Whedon’s contribution was so significant that die-hard Zack Snyder fans seem to believe there is a full, workable cut of Snyder’s Justice League out there and are demanding it be released. Though some of the cut footage—which erased Willem Dafoe’s Aquaman character Vulko and Kiersey Clemons’ Flash character Iris West from the film—that leaked online show’s Synder’s version of the film very far from done. Still, according to the Snyder faithful, all the issues with Justice League can be laid at Whedon’s feet. But it’s not accurate to give him that much credit.
Even those early reviewers who tweeted positively about Justice League, had to admit that the tonal clash between Whedon’s light-hearted take on superheroes and Snyder’s grim and dour one was significant. Apparently Warner Bros. stepped in to curtail Whedon a bit in order to make that transition a little smoother—starting with the film’s opening scene. In Batman action sequence that reads as both slapstick and grim, Ben Affleck’s caped crusader tracks down Holt McCallany’s burglar on the rooftops of Gotham.
Eli Garcia
No, he's just unable to do anything without comedy, he even basically admits to it
Zachary Bennett
Every single time Joss has a brilliant success:
>"Oh yeah, all me, I artfully crafted every single moment, no suggestions other than mine made it into the film."
Every time anyone criticizes Joss:
>"Waaaaah! Studios ruined it! Alien Resurection was a masterpiece until people took the script away from me! My shoehorned in clunky farm and Black Widow/Hulk shipping in no way contributed to people disliking Age of Ultron!"
Carson Morales
Why does he have to make everything superficial and coy?
Mason Johnson
he scene opens with them, naturally, at odds and ends with them amicably parting ways so if it felt like there was something missing—that’s because there was.
McCallany—whose dry wit made him an instant favorite on Netflix’s Mindhunter—told Men’s Fitness: “I love Joss Whedon. My scene with Batman was originally conceived as a comedic scene. That’s how Joss wrote it, and that’s how we shot it. I thought it came out great, but the studio felt it would be a mistake to open the film with a completely comedic scene, so it was re-edited a little bit. I was disappointed.” It would appear Warner Bros. acted with a heavier hand on Whedon’s work than some had originally believed. No wonder the film is struggling at the box office.
Zachary Perry
Whedon, for his part, seems to have taken these cuts in stride. His scraps with Marvel went public, but these skirmishes with Warner Bros. have remained, for the most part, low key. McCallany says: “When I got home to New York I found a bottle of my favorite champagne and a note from Joss that said ‘To Battles Lost. Gratefully, Joss.’ I can’t tell you how much it meant to me that he took the time to write to me. Joss Whedon is a class act. I had the letter framed.”
Despite rumors, according to a recent report in Entertainment Weekly, Whedon is still on board to direct Batgirl for Warner Bros., meaning that the post-Justice League relationship can’t be all that toxic for either the studio or the director. But without needing to match Snyder’s tone, will Joss be allowed to go full Whedon on Batgirl? Or will Warner Bros. continue to use a heavy hand in shaping their floundering franchise?
Juan Butler
>erased William Dafoe's character
WB deserves to burn.
Sebastian Morgan
He's literally *record scratch* the director.
Jack Peterson
>When Whedon first signed on to help with Justice League, Snyder was still working on the project. The Batman v. Superman director then exited entirely due to a family tragedy—leaving Whedon to complete the project. WAIT. Stop the fucking presses. Is this saying that Whedon was already on the project to get it back on track BEFORE SNYDER'S DAUGHTER EVEN DIED???
Owen Lopez
>die-hard Zack Snyder fans Pardon me?
Kevin Russell
>opening scene of man of steel >zod's military coup, kal-el's parents see him for the first and last time, destruction of krypton
>opening scene of batman vs superman >death of bruce wayne's parents, the destruction of metropolis seen from the eyes of civilians, bruce wayne's first begins to hate superman
>opening scene of justice league >DUDE HAHA IT SHOULD BE FUNNY :))))
Adrian Allen
>go full Whedon on Batgirl?
Jordan Thomas
>die-hard Zack Snyder fans It's a nice way of saying autists.
Easton Watson
He doesn't have a sincere bone in his body.
Samuel Sullivan
This will be a fake story given to Vanity Fair by Joss.
Jace Turner
>actual Neo-Nazi demolishes a Muslim grocery store (or attempts as he is stopped by cops and people) and of course you see only the Hijabi woman and a child. The Muslim men are always missing in the SJW narratives. And of course the most terrible scourges of our times is not the Muslim crime wave, no-go zones, gang-rape sex-grooming gangs, the trucks of peace, the Bataclans and Charlie Hebdos - no - it's the Neo-Nazis.
>Wonder Woman stops a CHRISTIAN TERRORIST GROUP IN LONDON! Yes - a Christian all-white terrorist group enters a London building and wants to kill women and children - also blow up 4 city blocks to "cleanse them of their sins". Yeah - because that happens and you need to show that Christians are the true terrorists or can be just as well as the followers of the cult of Islam.
That happened within the first minutes of the movie.
If you happen to have those liberal viewpoints, then better not to put them in a fucking fiction movie about Superheroes and Aliens - leave those politics aside. Better make it about the fight against evil and pulling together to survive - but no....
There were also a few minor mentions of the Daily Planet covering the numerous SJWs protests at US colleges and viewing the "woke" protesters as wonderful Bolshevik fighters for truth and justice. There were mentions of Global Warming and the Rising of the Seas - guess Al Gore is still valid in the Justice League universe.
Fuck them. They will lose some 200-300 mio. $. Thor Ragnarok made 200-300 mio. $ while it cost 120$ mio. less. And the best is that the people don't like it.
Though they won't learn the right lessons from it. The leftist movie producers don't understand that people liked Deadpool not because he killed people, but because he was light-hearted, funny, apolitical and likable - both the actor and the character are and that is a good thing.
Sebastian Scott
>Yes - a Christian all-white terrorist group enters a London building and wants to kill women and children - also blow up 4 city blocks to "cleanse them of their sins". Yeah - because that happens and you need to show that Christians are the true terrorists or can be just as well as the followers of the cult of Islam. I can't believe that. I'm sorry.
Levi Flores
If he did, he'd have made a funnier Batman.
Batman can either go full camp because of legacy or be deadpan with one-liners for comedy, not the stuttering retard making bad jokes Whedon directed him as.
Wait, you mean to tell me those werent bank robbers WHAT THE FUCK
Aiden White
Joss Whedon murdered Zack Snyder's daughter.
Lincoln Gutierrez
The Wonder Woman scene is literally from Snyder though. That scene is in the first trailer.
Benjamin Thomas
I know. I would have to see it to believe it.
Dominic Miller
>actual Neo-Nazi demolishes a Muslim grocery store (or attempts as he is stopped by cops and people) and of course you see only the Hijabi woman and a child.
I'm no Sup Forumstard, but I found it odd that this was the centerpiece of the somber opening montage. Like Superman's gone, so all those fucking racists don't have to worry anymore.
Surely there are more severe acts of violence going on than a skinhead kicking over tangerines.
Aiden Lewis
Does anyone have the originall prayer circle, "a second fresh review" pic?
Juan Richardson
Even when the police arrive and begin trying to restrain him, rather than running away, he uses the last few seconds of his freedom desperately trying to hurt those Muslims.
Why?
Charles Wright
At some point directors are going to have to start saying, "Look, what I do is creativity, what you do is business. Let's come together with our positive strengths. You don't have creativity, I don't have business. You sell my creativity. I don't tell you how to sell, you don't tell me how to create."
There's been no bigger disaster than the dawn of these movies by board of committee.
Hudson Robinson
So is the neo-Nazi. That was undoubtedly shot by Snyder.
Ian Young
Why are you all pretending to care?
Jonathan Nguyen
Why do you care whether they care or pretend to care?
Alexander Myers
Yeah, that surprised me as well. I thought the "die-hard Snyder fans" thing was just a meme
Zachary Diaz
>>actual Neo-Nazi demolishes a Muslim grocery store (or attempts as he is stopped by cops and people) and of course you see only the Hijabi woman and a child. The Muslim men are always missing in the SJW narratives. And of course the most terrible scourges of our times is not the Muslim crime wave, no-go zones, gang-rape sex-grooming gangs, the trucks of peace, the Bataclans and Charlie Hebdos - no - it's the Neo-Nazis. >>Wonder Woman stops a CHRISTIAN TERRORIST GROUP IN LONDON! Yes - a Christian all-white terrorist group enters a London building and wants to kill women and children - also blow up 4 city blocks to "cleanse them of their sins". Yeah - because that happens and you need to show that Christians are the true terrorists or can be just as well as the followers of the cult of Islam.
This is some /po/ tier strawmen fantasy right? No way that actually happened.
Anthony Brooks
>go full Whedon on Batgirl? he'll use his positional authority to get sexual favors from her, like Batman did in the animated Killing Joke?
Elijah Wilson
It's 100% real
Gabriel Hernandez
>a tangerine...
Lincoln Green
>This is some /po/ tier strawmen fantasy right? That's the shape of things, user. Events are unfolding in plain view, you don't even need to crane your neck to see them.
Jordan Robinson
The struggle between business and creator's vision isn't new. In fact there are untold examples of film creators benefiting from producers that know how to reign them in. It's a balancing act, though capeshit is universally trash anyway so it would be an odd place to make a stand for that kind of thing.
Brandon Wilson
they need to keep him away from Batman and the bat family.
They should give him a totally goofball character like Plastic Man. Full creative control, silly outfit.... go pull an Ant-Man.
Animal Man? Booster Gold
They need to keep Whedon away from the Justice League.
Leo Cooper
>actual Neo-Nazi demolishes a Muslim grocery store (or attempts as he is stopped by cops and people) and of course you see only the Hijabi woman and a child. The Muslim men are always missing in the SJW narratives. And of course the most terrible scourges of our times is not the Muslim crime wave, no-go zones, gang-rape sex-grooming gangs, the trucks of peace, the Bataclans and Charlie Hebdos - no - it's the Neo-Nazis.
>Wonder Woman stops a CHRISTIAN TERRORIST GROUP IN LONDON! Yes - a Christian all-white terrorist group enters a London building and wants to kill women and children - also blow up 4 city blocks to "cleanse them of their sins". Yeah - because that happens and you need to show that Christians are the true terrorists or can be just as well as the followers of the cult of Islam. That's fucking hilarious.
They aren't even trying to gloss over the terror epidemic, but are actively trying to reverse fact.
Although, on the other hand, one could take it to mean that Christian mass Terror is about as real as Superman.
Austin Roberts
>alt-right manbaby triggered about literally everything
Xavier Ward
But that's not what I'm talking about. The original Star Wars were saved by the collaborative nature of films.
What's new is the industrialization of film has now reached its final destination and logical conclusion, movies made entirely by committee in corporate boardrooms based on charts, graphs, demographic data, trending popularity, and focus group testing. George Lucas on the original trilogy had other creative directors and producers involved that guided his imagination in good directions. What he didn't have were business suits telling him what's going to be in the movie based on market research, he deliberately avoided the studio suits having any power over his movies.
Isaac Young
bro
Lucas Cooper
I have it on good authority that Snyder opened the movie with a tight close up inside Superman's ass cheeks with Batman and Wonder Woman poking around inside looking for clues about resurrecting him.
Zachary Clark
Quads for truth.
Gavin Sanders
Kek
Angel Jenkins
we all know he is a cuck manlet who wants to be a chad
Dylan Ross
Whedon is like Aaron Sorkin. He's pretty good at what he does, but it's all he does. Everybody talks the same, whether it's Alfred or Sandra Bullock from Speed.
Snyder did nothing wrong, Whedon ruined it. Whedon did nothing wrong, executive meddled.
Notice how nobody ultimately takes the blame, it's all diverted to some unnamed group of executives that never have actual job titles or names or anything.
Connor Sanders
They were Christian? I assumed they were like a death cult.
Ryder Ramirez
>No way that actually happened. bruh
Liam Price
Probably was a death cult. Tons of demon worshipers in the DC universe who summon bad dudes and stuff.
Could have been an easter egg.
Tyler Hall
He needs to be kept away from all batman characters the man does not get shit If you aren't going full joe schumacher parody then don't bother with it.
Nolan Barnes
Yeah right. Directors can get all kinds of artistic freedom, so long as they aren't getting huge budgets and working with valuable IP. If Snyder wants the freedom to do whatever he wants, he shouldn't be working with the marquee characters and a big budget. If you take $200 million from somebody to make a movie using their most valuable property, you have to listen to them.
Eli Carter
They aren't gonna fire Joss right now but I am willing to put money on them either cancelling the entire project or kicking him off in a year And bring back Refn !
Xavier Lee
Ben's got some explaining to do
Jack Stewart
This whole thing stinks. It sounds like they wanted to fire Snyder fairly early on, got Whedon in a comfortable position and then used his daughter dying as the reason they needed to have him on paid leave. It's not like Zack wanted days off. He began immediately working on his short film after he was out. Either they wanted to be kind to Snyder or they didn't want the PR nightmare of losing your biggest director and universe architect months before premiere. I hope better for Snyder. BvS was unfairly rated by critics and it seems to have killed his career.
Adam Roberts
>BvS It was terrible premise for a movie to begin with
Jace Garcia
It's a never ending cycle of the same shit in hollywood.
Samuel Wilson
Yeah sure and then you get derivative trash like the MCU and JL made by a committee. Every film requires an artist behind it, not businessmen.
Aaron Cook
Did you not read a thing that was previously written?
Colton Watson
The premise was fanboyish but I was blown away at how seriously they approached it and made it a sincere film. That alone is a huge accomplishment in itself. There is ton of commentary on the ruling elite, the media clickbait journalism and political idealism in that film. The best character is Senator Finch.
Asher Hernandez
Underrated
Oliver Russell
>See Anons, what we call Capeshit depends upon our tribe, Clark, Bruce, Tony, Steve, Warner/Disney, 'cause capeshit is tribal. Men and women take different sides. I figured out way back if capeshit is all-powerful, It cannot be all good. And if It is all good, then It cannot be all-powerful. And neither can you the audience be.
Juan Hall
>totally goofball character >Animal Man
Go read a comic new friend
Oliver Howard
Both masterfully crafted posts
Landon Carter
I did, and it was stupid. Directing a movie is artistic, sure, but it's a business. Zack Snyder started out directing commercials. There's artistry in advertising too, but it's a business. There's a lot of creativity and artistry in movies, but movies are a business. Studios invest hundreds of millions of dollars in these big movies; they hire the director; and they can overrule the director. Michael Bay had a lot more freedom making Pain and Gain than he did with Transformers. There are plenty of directors who aren't interested in doing anything they don't really want to do, like Paul Thomas Anderson. Inherent Vice was like a $20 million movie.
Do you think it's a coincidence that random directors like Colin Treverrow get hired for things like Jurassic World? They're hired by a committee specifically to make movies by committee. If they can't get a safe director with an eye for business like Ron Howard, Spielberg, or JJ, they go for people without enough clout to push back.
Evan Collins
You just proved everything I said right so it's strange you would call it "stupid". Unless of course you actually didn't read it at all.
Ryan Sanders
Well, if you think that executives like Toby Emmerich and Geoff Johns aren't creative and that movie directors aren't involved in marketing, then yeah, you're stupid.
Jeremiah Nelson
Never said either of those things, so I guess that confirms your illiteracy.
Cheers!
Christian Taylor
>At some point directors are going to have to start saying, "Look, what I do is creativity, what you do is business. Let's come together with our positive strengths. You don't have creativity, I don't have business. You sell my creativity. I don't tell you how to sell, you don't tell me how to create."
Christian Johnson
>Superman sees a skinhead kicking over a tangerine stand >"Hey! Stop that!" >"Fuck you too you twink!" >Superman murders the skinhead for being mean >hijab lady is scared of him now >more news segments on "Why does Superman kill tangerine kickers?"
Brody Jenkins
shame about the movie itself
Christopher Martinez
>>Wonder Woman stops a CHRISTIAN TERRORIST GROUP IN LONDON! Yes - a Christian all-white terrorist group enters a London building and wants to kill women and children - also blow up 4 city blocks to "cleanse them of their sins". Yeah - because that happens and you need to show that Christians are the true terrorists or can be just as well as the followers of the cult of Islam.
Patty Jenkins Wonder Woman destroyed a Catholic Church and no american Christian community protested, and this is Strike 2
Wyatt Mitchell
>he even basically admits to it When? Where?
Blake Young
>Wonder Woman stops a CHRISTIAN TERRORIST GROUP IN LONDON
How many Catholic terrorist group you see in real life? "They" have an unbelievable fear of Islam, uh?
Logan Rivera
SUPERMAN WOULD HAVE STOPPED DRUMPF
Michael Moore
Destroying that church was such bullshit. The irish guy just needed a couple minutes to get himself together, she didn't need to play fucking human cannonball. Especially seeing how utterly ridiculous it was how she just crashed through some wood planks covering an archway. At first I thought she wanted to climb the rest of the tower from there to get to the sniper but then it just exploded from within despite her not even hitting anything structurally necessary.
Kevin Wright
> all Flashs need black gfs
What do they want to tell us?
Ethan Rivera
You just know the jews forced it since BVS had those terrorists killing Jimmy Olsen.
Dylan Price
I'm honestly unsure of that. I know there's the "dude slow mo! LMAO" but when it's someone else doing it, it's painfully obvious. Like comparing 300 and 300: Rise of an Empire, or the slow motion in Wonder Woman compared to the Snyder DC films. Snyder also doesn't seem like the guy to put rampant SJWisms in his films.
William Kelly
>Animal Man >goofball character Kek, nice one.
Lincoln Perry
You faggots do know Snyder hates Islam, right? He compared them as a plague in Dawn of the Dead
Brayden Cooper
>hacking nearly an hour of Snyder’s original footage out of the completed project.
I am mortified.
Ayden Ramirez
Does this piece of shit not get a directors (i.e. Snyders) cut? That's the only way I see that it will make any profit.
I don't understand what people had against the BVS directors cut. The Suits get the (((superior))) version into cinemas to fool idiots into paying the highest prices but the original vision is still available for those who actually care.
Isaac Ortiz
Thank you, user. Not to mention he went full white nationalist with 300. There's no way that market scene is Snyder's. It feels like an imitation
Ayden Powell
DC is fucked forever.
Levi Adams
The real cancer of DCEU. And this board as well.
Jackson Garcia
Whedon was indeed brought in to assist with JL before Snyder dropped out.
Take that for what you will. Seems pretty obvious to me, WB had lost faith in Snyder and locked down Whedon when they got the chance. They'd been better off scrapping Synder's work entirely and reshot 100% of the movie not 20%.
Benjamin Thomas
The thing is, Benny, is that US military policy doesn't give a shit who you worship. They only care about their national interests, mostly oil.
When muslims attack the west, it *is* about religion.
So if you wanna debate geopolitics thats fine, the US definitely has problems. But its problems dont come from religion, and the debate about islam is that the *religion* is inherently violent.
Andrew Ross
Are you pretending to be retarded because you don't have an argument? If not, the one who should check his reading comprehension is you, since you don't even understand your own posts.
Jaxon Bell
>it's a "user pretends his idol shares his views" episode
Nicholas Wood
there will never be a Captain Atom flick
Blake Walker
nice
Cameron Foster
>They should give him a totally goofball character like Plastic Man
there was a time in the late 2000's when the Wachowskis were attached to a plastic man adaptation actually
Brandon Brooks
I bet based Jim Carrey would have been selected for the role
Aaron Ross
after snyders daughter ied he was stil working on it. he left later on