The Snyder Cut of Justice League is coming to HBO Max

By Rick Marshall May 20, 2020

HBO Max will finally release the “Snyder Cut” of Justice League.

After years of fans campaigning to see director Zack Snyder’s cut of the Warner Bros. Pictures superhero blockbuster, the extended version of the much-maligned film will go public. HBO Max and Warner Bros. announced Wednesday that the cut will debut exclusively on the streaming service at some point in 2021.

Snyder announced the news during an online commentary session for his 2013 Superman film, Man of Steel.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the filmmaker’s preferred, extended version of the film will either be released in a single, four-hour director’s cut or in a six-part, television-style release divided into “chapters.”

The #ReleaseTheSnyderCut campaign has become a wide-reaching, fan-fueled call to arms in the years following the film’s release, with filmmakers, actors, and fans all calling for Snyder’s cut of the film to be released in some form.

“I want to thank HBO Max and Warner Brothers for this brave gesture of supporting artists and allowing their true visions to be realized. Also a special thank you to all of those involved in the SnyderCut movement for making this a reality,” Snyder said.

Directed and co-written by Snyder, Justice League brought together Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash, and Cyborg to defeat a powerful alien invader threatening humanity. Along the way, their efforts resulted in the resurrection of Superman, who must remember why he is Earth’s greatest protector in time to save the planet.

The film proved to be both a critical and commercial disappointment, earning some of the worst reviews of any installment of Warner Bros. Pictures’ DC Extended Universe, and became one of the lowest-grossing films in the franchise both domestically and worldwide. Longtime fans of Snyder’s superhero films were quick to point fingers at the studio for the movie’s failure, and a campaign to release the director’s cut of the film quickly gained traction in social media circles.

The aggressive campaign, which used the hashtag “#ReleaseTheSnyderCut” on social media, only grew more vocal as various filmmakers and actors mentioned an interest in seeing Snyder’s cut, or confirmed that such a version existed.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…

Entertainment

Celebrate Mother’s Day with HBO, Max, and a lot of great movies and TV shows

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler in Baby Mama.

This Sunday, May 12, is Mother's Day, making it the perfect time to look back and reflect on the mothers in our lives. It's a special day for anyone whose parents are still with them, or even an occasion to celebrate between spouses and partners with children of their own. However you choose to mark the event, Max has shared a list of its top movies and TV shows for Mother's Day.

Topping the list of Feel Good Comedies is Baby Mama, the 2008 film starring Saturday Night Live legends Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as a woman, Kate Holbrook, and her freewheeling surrogate, Angie Ostrowski, respectively. Almost all of the selections on that list deal with motherhood in some way. The only list here with only slight connections to the shared theme is Coming of Age Movies and TV. But look at that list this way: They're just suggestions that you can watch with your mothers or your partners. It's entirely up to you.

Entertainment

One of HBO’s biggest hits is back. Here’s why you need to stream 2024’s most addictive crime saga

Three people stand at a wedding in The Jinx: Part Two.

On March 15, 2015, the most infamous hot mic moment ever to air on television shocked the world. Real estate scion Robert Durst, who had been implicated, but had thus far escaped justice in three murders committed from 1982 to 2003, inexplicably agreed to sit for a series of interviews with filmmaker Andrew Jarecki. The director had made a fictional feature film, All Good Things, that was loosely based on the disappearance of Durst’s first wife, Kathie, starring Barbie actor Ryan Gosling and Civil War's Kirsten Dunst.

Confronted, finally, with near-irrefutable evidence collected by Jarecki’s team that seemed to implicate Durst in the murder of his best friend Susan Berman in 2001, Durst lumbered off to the bathroom, where, forgetting his microphone was still on, he murmured, “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.” Such was the ending of The Jinx, a phenomenon for HBO when it aired more than nine years ago. But there was more story still to tell, and Jarecki’s follow-up, The Jinx: Part Two, now airing on HBO and streaming on Max, bucks the odds by sustaining the intensity and pure weirdness with which The Jinx concluded nearly a decade ago.
A new cast of larger-than-life characters

Entertainment

The 10 most popular shows on Max right now

Conan O'Brien in Conan O'Brien Must Go.

If there's a shocker this month on HBO and Max, it's that the highly touted original series The Sympathizer is only in the ninth slot on the list of the most popular shows on Max. Considering that series has Robert Downey Jr. in multiple roles, we expected it to do a lot better. Instead, the new No. 1 title on this list is Conan O'Brien Must Go, a comedy travel series featuring one of the quirkiest late-night talk show hosts from the last 25 years.

HBO's comedy and political talk shows, Real Time with Bill Maher and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, both returned to the list this month. And unsurprisingly, The Jinx is once again a true crime hit nine years after its previous season premiered on HBO. Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV and the anime series Ninja Kamui also had strong showings this month. But with only one episode left in the first season of Ninja Kamui, there may be a new show in its place on this list next month.