While doing publicity for his new film, Army of the Dead, Zack Snyder opened up more about the process of doing the extended "Snyder Cut" version of Justice League, which premiered on HBO Max in March, and the director described the whole endeavor as "torture."
Snyder, the director of Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, had been the original director on the follow-up film, Justice League, but he left the project before finishing due to the tragic death of his daughter, Autumn. Joss Whedon was then hired by Warner Bros. and Whedon rewrote and drastically re-edited Snyder's initial footage (as well as doing extensive reshoots) and the resulting 2017 Justice League release was a critical failure and a box office disappointment. After pushing his fans into pressuring Warner Bros. to "Release the Snyder Cut" of Justice League, Snyder received his wish and a four-hour version of his vision for the movie was released earlier this year. While this made Snyder happy, the whole process was not what he had hoped for, particularly from the perspective of how Warner Bros. treated him.
While talking with Uproxx, he explained, "It was cool to do the Snyder Cut of Justice League and that was fun and everything. But Warner Bros. still tortured me the whole time for whatever reason, they can’t help it. I don’t know why I’m such a fucking pain in their ass because I’m not trying to be, honestly."
These are not new sentiments from Snyder, and when he was asked whether him being vocal about his treatment from Warner Bros. might deter other studios from being on the "receiving end" of his complaints, he replied, "Well, I just don’t know who would ever end up on the other end? If you analyze what’s happened with Warner Bros., it’s not a normal situation. It’s a once-in-a-generation bizarro situation! I just had an amazing experience with Netflix and it was awesome and we had a great partnership and an incredibly great experience. So the only thing I would say is that it’s an unusual situation."
When told by the interviewer that they simply wanted to see Snyder avoid getting into any trouble, Snyder replied, "No, I agree. I don’t want to get in trouble either, but I’m not going to sit here and let them act like that and not… Look, they’re the ones that have been aggressive, not me. I haven’t done anything. Every day they’d turn around and do some weird passive-aggressive thing. So, I don’t know. It’s weird. But look, like I say, I had a great time making Justice League. I’m super glad I got to finish it."
The cold war between Snyder and Warner Bros. doesn't look like it will dissipate any time soon.
Source: Uproxx