In the ongoing, and seemingly endless, dissection of the problems with the Justice League film, many have looked at a studio mandated running time of two hours as the cause of the film’ editing, pacing and lack of characterization problems. There is also, of course, the fusion and frission between the work produced by original director Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon, who was brought in to oversee reshoots when Snyder had to drop out.
It looks like Warner Brothers may just be interested in releasing a longer version of the film that may fix some of those issues, but it may not be the extended cut that some fans want.
According to writer Mario F. Robles, whose Twitter bio lists him as a “freelance writer and scooper for places like @IGN & @TheSplashReport,” the studio is looking at releasing a longer cut of the film, but with more of Whedon’s reshoot material restored.
For the home release of #JusticeLeague, WB is mulling over packaging it as a #Superman Trilogy, alongside MOS and BvS. And here's the kicker:
It would include an Extended Cut of JL.
BUT!
It'd be an extended version of the theatrical cut. Not Snyder's cut.
— Mario-F. Robles (@I_Am_MFR) December 6, 2017
I would take this with a particularly large grain of salt for the time being. It is certainly probable that Whedon shot more material than wound up being used. We know that material he shot was further messaged and changed in the editing process. (See the reports about the film’s opening roof top scene with Batman originally being more comedic.)
There are numerous reason as to why some of this material may have been cut. As noted above, the two-hour length mandate probably is the main culprit here, though we won’t know for certain without knowing when that decree came down.
For some fans this would not be the extended cut of Justice League that they are hoping for. There is a vocal contingent of fans of director Snyder who would like to see a reported three hour plus long cut of the film released. The problem with that is that reported cut of the film was most likely a rough assemblage and would take a substantial investment to get it into a releasable state, an investment that would probably outweigh any returns. There is currently an online petition urging a release of Snyder’s alleged edit with over 120,000 although the validity of some of those signatures has been called into question.
This would not be the first time that Warners has released an extended cut of one of their DC Extended Universe superhero franchise films. A longer version of Snyder’s Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice restored footage that clarified some plot points even if it did nothing to correct the problems with the film’s tone and story structure. An extended cut of David Ayers’ Suicide Squad restored more footage of fan favorites Joker and Harley Quinn though it also muddied Harley’s motivations.
