We recently reported that Zack Snyder secretly worked with director James Wan to save Aquaman even after he was pretty much shunned by Warner Bros and his DCEU was branded a failure. While there were definitely problems with Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, and Justice League, Snyder had a plan in place. Thanks to Kevin Smith, we are now learning more about what he was hoping to do with a complete Justice League trilogy, and how studio pressure to turn a stand-story into a shared universe got in the way.
First, if you thought the DCEU felt like it was rushing to catch up to Marvel’s MCU shared universe, you aren’t the only one. It sounds like there was a problem between Snyder and the studio from the beginning as he was focused on telling a closed story, but Warner Bros was insistent on using it to simultaneously launching spin-offs of all of the characters and building out a cinematic universe. You can see the evidence of this in the canceled Cyborg movie and the Ezra Miller Flash film that is probably never going to happen.
What would have been different in Justice League?
According to Smith who spoke to several people that saw Jim Lee’s storyboards for the whole trilogy, the scene from the trailer in which Alfred is telling someone that he hopes they aren’t too late, he was actually supposed to be talking to Green Lantern. In fact, crew members apparently had green lighting all set up for that scene until it was changed by Joss Whedon.
The other big difference comes at the end of the movie.
“[The League] saw Darkseid, and Darkseid saw them,” Smith said. “Boom tube closes, and that’s the end of the fucking movie. With them all knowing there’s something out there, and we have to go.”
Justice League 2 –
“Justice League 2 was going cosmic as they take the fight to Apokolips … and the Lantern Corps was involved.”
Smith went on to say that the sequel would have a dark, ‘Empire Strikes Back’ style ending where the team was defeated by Darkseid who then went to the Earth and turned it into a hellscape.
Justice League 3 –
This is where that Batman’s “Knightmare” scene from the first film comes into play as he was seeing the Earth after Darkseid’s arrival.
“That was going to be the entire third movie,” Smith said. “The heroes’ last stand against Darkseid and the forces of Apokolips — holy fuck!”
You can see Kevin Smith’s full talk about the trilogy below. Now that you know the details, are you happy with the current state of the DCEU or would you have rather seen what would have happened if Snyder stayed at the helm?