Zack Snyder's Justice League is finally streaming on HBO Max across the globe. Fans have managed to get what they wanted to watch back in 2017 when the first Justice League movie released. Even the critics found Zack's version a vast improvement from the Joss Whedon cut and even compared it with Marvel's Avengers. It won't be wrong to say that it was made possible by one hashtag 'Release Snyder Cut'. Now that the four-hour cathartic version of DC's superheroes is out for viewing, let us tell you how this hashtag made the existence of Zack Snyder's Justice League possible. Zack Snyder’s Justice League Early Reviews Out! Critics Give A Positive Nod to this Long-Awaited DC Superhero Film

Many years ago...

It was November 17, 2017 when Justice League released in the theatres. Soon enough it was slammed by the critics and dismissed by the superhero fandom. “Release the Snyder Cut” author Sean O’Connell told WTOP, "Literally the first day that the Justice League theatrical movie screened, Zack’s fans knew it wasn’t his movie because they’d seen trailers and watched making-of clips. One of the fans just casually, jokingly dropped #ReleaseTheSnyderCut." And that's how the social media storm began. Later, it was even revealed that there did exist a Snyder cut, locked up in his laptop!

The flashback

What happened was Snyder faced a huge personal tragedy when his daughter died by suicide. His arguments with WB had already begun even before it and when the tragedy struck him, he found fighting for a movie trivial. His exit made the studio get a recruit from the rival superhero universe, Joss Whedon. The latter didn't pick up the pieces and moved ahead but apparently made significant changes to JL. We all know what happened to that!

The hashtag Release The Snyder Cut kept resurfacing every now and then on social media. At the film's two-year anniversary, however, it took a mammoth scale with more and more joining the trend. In fact, many actors from the franchise became a party to it as well.

First Wonder Woman Gal Gadot...

And then Batman Ben Affleck himself...

Back to present

A Vanity Fair report suggests that Warner Bros initially approached Snyder to release the rough cut of the version. The filmmaker gave it a 'Hard No.' The director reasoned, "One, you get the internet off your back, which is probably your main reason for wanting to do this. Two, you get to feel vindicated for making things right, I guess, on some level. And then three, you get a shitty version of the movie that you can point at and go, ‘See? It’s not that good anyway. So maybe I was right.’ I was like, No chance. I would rather just have the Snyder cut be a mythical unicorn for all time.”

Finally, WB gave in. As per WTOP, the studio spent nearly $70 million to finish the movie and now the fans have the four-hour JL by Snyder on HBO Max. It's a win-win we feel as WB got all the free publicity without losing even a penny.

 

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 18, 2021 01:53 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).