The damaging effects of the 2017 version of Justice League continue to harm the DC brand six years after the fact. Following Zack Snyder's departure from Justice League due to a family tragedy, the movie underwent a massive overhaul with extensive reshoots at the behest of Warner Bros., with the movie becoming a box office disappointment upon its release. Though the Snyder Cut campaign would eventually lead to Zack Snyder's Justice League being released in 2021, the wounds of its 2017 counterpart have continued to damage DC ever since.
Most recently, the long term effects of that damage have been seen in Shazam! Fury of the Gods' disappointing box office, with more drama would arise from unrealized cameos in both it and the preceding Black Adam and the online chatter around the matter. More bad news would also arrive for DC with Ben Affleck's statement that he would "absolutely not" direct a movie for the slate of DCU films laid out by DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn. When looking at the trajectory of DC on film since 2017, all of its woes can be traced directly back to the lingering effects that Justice League 2017 had and that DC has been unable to shake off.
The Justice League 2017 Reshoots Were A Huge Mistake
The last minute revamping of Justice League in 2017 stands as an infamous mistake of historic proportions. Coming off the divisively received Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Warner Bros. hired Joss Whedon to effectively remake the movie from the ground up six months before its November 2017 release. Justice League's reshoots and their post-production work proved so hurried that the digital removal of Henry Cavill's mustache (that he had grown for Mission: Impossible - Fallout) ended up being impossible to hide. It also made clear that the theatrical cut of Justice League had not stayed true to Snyder's intentions, as WB had been claiming was the case all along.
On top of turning Justice League into a Frankenstein monster of a movie, the reshoots are also full of allegations of abusive conduct on the part of Joss Whedon towards the cast and crew. Ray Fisher would describe Whedon's conduct as "gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable," leading to an investigation by Warner Media into the reshoots. Gal Gadot and Jason Momoa would corroborate Fisher's accusations, while Ben Affleck has also spoken about the toxic environment of Justice League's reshoots as leading to his decision to walk away from portraying Batman. Meanwhile, the Justice League saga would continue with the Snyder Cut story.
The Snyder Cut Gave DC A Second Chance (That WB Didn't Take)
When it became swiftly evident that Justice League's theatrical cut was not the movie Zack Snyder had intended, a grassroots campaign arose calling for the release of Snyder's cut of the movie, famously using the hashtag #ReleaseTheSnyderCut online. Eventually, the Snyder Cut was greenlit on May 20, 2020, but the Justice League struggles were far from over. Snyder has stated that WB "tortured" him as the Snyder Cut was being completed. WB also would not permit Green Lantern (Wayne T. Carr) to be included in the film, claiming to have plans of their own for John Stewart (which then never came to fruition), with Snyder instead using Martian Manhunter (Harry Lennix) in the movie's final scene.
Zack Snyder's Justice League would eventually debut to a positive mainstream reception in March 2021. However, WB continued to distance themselves from the movie, with WB's then-CEO Ann Sarnoff stating just after the film's release there would be no further SnyderVerse DC movies or a release of the Ayer Cut of Suicide Squad. Despite that, for the conclusion of Snyder's Justice League arc reached incredible heights, including 1.5 million #RestoreTheSnyderVerse tweets in one day. The subsequent events of DC on film have shown just how much harm was done by both the Justice League reshoots and ignoring the second chance that the Snyder Cut offered.
DC Movies Have Been Paying For Justice League 2017 Ever Since
While 2018's Aquaman became DC's biggest cinematic hit ever with its $1.1 billion box office haul, 2017's Justice League would greatly impact the rest of the DCEU. Ben Affleck's Batman departure and WB's decision to move on from Henry Cavill left the DCEU without an in-universe Batman or Superman (other than Superman's cameos in Shazam! and Peacemaker that obscured his face). Justice League 2017 also left the League itself broken up, with WB relying mainly on DC movies with second-tier characters like Shazam! and Birds of Prey, neither of which carried the kind of box office pull as DC's heavy hitters on the Justice League.
After the Snyder Cut's release, WB's refusal to move build from it led to a quagmire with the Justice League almost entirely on the sidelines in the DCEU other than their brief Peacemaker cameo. The Rock's strenuous efforts to bring Superman back into the DCEU fold in Black Adam finally happened with Cavill's cameo, but the movie was still commercial hampered by the years of preceding behind-the-scenes chaos. With James Gunn's new DCU announced and Shazam! Fury of the Gods box office letdown, the unfortunate truth is that both are a culmination of the damage wrought by Justice League 2017 and WB's efforts to bury the Snyder Cut.
Can The Damage of JL 2017 Ever Be Undone?
The Snyder Cut's release gave Warner Bros. an all but unheard of opportunity to rebound from the damage inflicted on the DCEU by 2017's Justice League, with that damage only compounding ever since by the studio not doing so. With all of that tied to the first ever cinematic Justice League movie, that damage is clearly still hovering over the DC brand as a whole. The question is what it would take to reverse that for good?
Long term, properly ending the SnyderVerse might well be the best shot at healing the wounds of Justice League 2017 once and for all. Of course, Snyder's current projects with Netflix like his Rebel Moon franchise makes that even more complicated, along with the reluctance of cast like Ben Affleck to return after their negative experiences on the Justice League reshoots. Still, with the box office disappointment of Shazam! Fury of the Gods, the return of behind-the-scenes drama over it and Black Adam's cameo politics, and #RestoreTheSnyderVerse calls persisting, Justice League 2017 remains a festering wound on all things DC.
Until and unless Warner Bros. and DC Studios find a way to undo the damage of Justice League 2017, the DC brand remains subject to the seemingly never-ending fallout resulting from it. DC movies to follow Justice League 2017 have, through no fault of their own, bore the burden of the mistakes made with it, with that even arguably including Zack Snyder's Justice League itself in WB's eagerness to bury it. Despite the Snyder Cut actually being released, Warner Bros. and DC have yet to truly reconcile with the mistakes of the 2017 version Justice League. Sooner or later, that has to become a priority for the sake of the DC brand.
