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Justice League’s Snyder Cut Could Be 4-Hour Movie OR TV Show
Justice League's Snyder Cut could be released as either a 4-hour movie or a TV show. Nearly 2.5 years after DCEU fans started the rallying cry #ReleaseTheSnyderCut, it's now been officially confirmed the director's version of the movie will see the light of day. Following a Man of Steel watch party, Snyder broke the news, confirming Justice League's Snyder Cut will debut on HBO Max next year. Exact details, such as a specific release date, are unknown at this point in time, but the project gives HBO Max a huge draw as it enters the streaming wars. In some respects, the Snyder Cut could be HBO Max's Mandalorian.
As exciting as this news is, there's still a lot that has to be sorted out. The Snyder Cut requires a fair amount of work before it's completed, with an estimated budget of $20-30 million for the music score, visual effects, and possible additional photography with the original Justice League cast. There's also the manner in how the Snyder Cut will be released. Though Justice League was originally conceived as a feature film, the HBO Max platform provides multiple opportunities for the rollout.
In THR's report covering the Snyder Cut situation, it's mentioned that currently it's undecided if the Snyder Cut will release as a 4-hour movie or as a TV miniseries broken up into multiple episodes.
Right now, it wouldn't be surprising if HBO Max went with the latter of those two options, releasing the Snyder Cut in weekly installments. That was how Disney+ handled The Mandalorian, which paid off in spades. The Mandalorian was able to dominate the pop culture zeitgeist for an extended period of time, building up the show's fan base and Disney+ in general. As HBO Max looks to make a splash in the streaming wars, turning the Snyder Cut into weekly appointment viewing sounds like a smart move. In THR's coverage, it's said Snyder himself pitched executives on "the concept of episodes and cliffhangers," so he seems to be in favor of the TV show route. As Snyder says, his Justice League is "an entirely new thing," so multiple chapters that have cliffhangers would be a cool way to generate hype for what's next and keep fans in the conversation as they speculate about what might happen.
Another benefit to making Justice League a TV show is it'd arguably be more digestible for casual audiences in that format. Die-hard fans will happily watch the Snyder Cut however it's presented, but other viewers might find it daunting to sit down and watch it in a single 4-hour sitting (length was one of the most common criticisms lobbied against Martin Scorsese's The Irishman last year). HBO Max doesn't just want to appeal to the DC fans that spent the past couple of years campaigning for the Snyder Cut, they want this to be a mainstream event that draws in subscribers. For many reasons, splitting Justice League's Snyder Cut into a handful of episodes is logical.
