Original ‘Justice League’ Plans Revealed By Zack Snyder

It is not a secret to avid DC fans that the “Justice League” movie that hit theaters in 2017 was not Zack Snyder’s original vision for the film. When Joss Whedon’s “Justice League” turned out to be a critical and box office flop, fans of Snyder started a petition urging Warner Bros. to release the original director’s cut — but to no avail.

Now after years of keeping fans in the dark, Snyder finally revealed what the “Justice League” movie would have been under his direction. During the Q&A segment that followed a recent screening of the Ultimate Cut of “Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice,” Snyder revealed that Warner Bros. scrapped his original script for “Justice League” before it even got made, but he had huge plans. Here are some of them.

The “Knightmare” Dream

Snyder’s original script intended to explain the post-apocalyptic “Knightmare” dream sequence from “Batman V Superman.” In the movie, this sequence is where Bruce Wayne fights his way across a deserted wasteland ruled by Darkseid. Snyder planned to shed light on this dream on “Justice League” by having Batman team up with a broken version of Cyborg and reverse everything by traveling back in time and warning the past version of Bruce Wayne.

A Solo “Cyborg” Movie

Snyder’s plan for Cyborg would have been a standalone movie, following a definitive narrative-changing role in “Justice League.” Unfortunately, what viewers saw in the “Justice League” movie were only remnants of Snyder’s original vision for the character. Snyder’s Cyborg “Justice League” scene happened when Victor Stone plugged himself into the Kryptonian ship before the League saved Clark Kent.

No Russian Family

In the movie, a Russian family dwells near the area where Steppenwolf is gathering the mother boxes to unleash his plan. The goal of Justice League is to ensure that these potential victims make it to safety before the major villain destroys them. In Snyder’s original plan, however, the Russian family was never there. One of the film’s storyboard artists, Jay Oliva, interjected during the Q&A. “In fact, they made it an abandoned town because of the backlash from ‘Man of Steel,’” she said. Snyder believed a Russian family wouldn’t make sense when it was supposed to be abandoned from the start.