From Whedon wars to Snyder Cuts, the Justice League movie is now the stuff of Hollywood Legend. Here are 10 Fascinating Film Facts
1. This film wasn’t actually the first attempt to make a Justice League film, in fact in 2007 Warner gave the green light for a Justice League film to be made with a screenplay written, George Miller on board as Director and the entire Justice League cast featuring Armie Hammer as Batman, rapper Common as John Stewart’s Green Lantern and Adam Brody as The Flash among others. The film was ultimately shelved during production due in part to the writer’s strike and budgetary concerns.
2. Ray Fisher’s Cyborg was described as being the “heart of the film” by Director Zack Snyder however when Joss Whedon took over directorial duties most of Cyborg’s scenes were cut from the film. Ray Fisher has since had a very public falling out with Joss Whedon and upper management at Warner Studios making a number of allegations against them which has resulted in him being written out of his planned appearance in the upcoming Flash movie.
#Borglife
3. The film was originally designed to be a two-parter with the second part of the film due for release in 2019 but due to poor critical reception the decision was made at the time to not push ahead with the sequel with fans instead campaigning for the release of the Snyder Cut to see the film as it was originally intended before Joss Whedon’s reshoots. It has however been claimed in recent days that plans for a second and even third Justice League film are back on the table such has been the hype surrounding Zack Snyder’s version. Watch this space!
4. Due to a massive budget, marketing costs and extensive reshoot costs the film actually lost Warner an estimated $60million despite the film grossing over $657million worldwide making it not only a critical failure but a commercial failure too.
5. Warner pressured film makers to deliver a film less than 2 hours long without credits with the official run time of this film clocking in just under that at 119 minutes. This is in stark contrast to the Snyder Cut which has a total runtime of over 4 hours!
READ MORE See the review for Zack Snyder’s Justice League here
6. Justice League has faced widespread ridicule for the saga surrounding Henry Cavill’s digitally altered face for his reshoots, something Warner had to do to as Cavill was contractually obligated to keep his facial hair whilst filming Mission Impossible Fallout at the same time, but did you know that Cavill was initially given permission to shave his face for his Superman reshoots?
Fallout director Christopher McQuarrie revealed that he first agreed to Warner’s request for Cavill to shave his face in return for $3million – the estimated cost of them shutting down production of their film whilst Cavill’s facial hair grew back to allow them to continue shooting where they left off or adding visual effects for their film. Someone from Paramount Pictures got wind of this though and flat out refused to shut down putting an end to that agreement. Would the $3million cost have been money well spent for Warner to not have to proceed with a digitally altered faced Superman? I’ll let you decidw!
READ MORE See the full official launch trailer for Zack Snyders Justice League here
7. Producer Charles Roven stated that the theatrical release of Justice League was “80 to 85 percent of what was originally shot”. Zack Snyder himself estimated that only 25 percent of his material was used in the theatrical version. Cinematographer Fabian Wagner went even further claiming that only 10 percent of the original footage shot by him and Snyder was used in the final cut. If the latter two estimates are true, we should be in for a lot of new footage and almost an entirely different film with the release of the Snyder Cut.
8. Hans Zimmer was originally supposed to provide music for the film before “retiring from superhero films” so was replaced by long-term Snyder collaborator Junkie XL who was then replaced by Danny Elfman who wrote the score for the film. Elfman also composed the scores for the Tim Burton Batman movies (both Batman and Batman Returns) and The Flash TV show. He even uses some of his previous Batman music in this film as well as the iconic music from the Christopher Reeve Superman films which was composed by John Williams.
9. Despite the film being called The Justice League as that is what their collective are known as the superheroes are never actually referred to as such in the movie. Superman is referred to by his name 13 times despite him having the least screen time of any of the heroes. Aquaman and Batman are referred to by their names only twice whilst Cyborg is referred to by his name only once. The Flash and Wonder Woman aren’t referred to by their superhero names at all in the film;
10. Zack Snyder has claimed to have never watched the theatrical release of this film despite largely contributing to it.
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