“Zack Snyder’s Justice League” has finally made its streaming debut on HBO Max, and with it comes a brand new scene the filmmaker shot for his four-hour superhero epic. Nearly the entirety of the Snyder Cut consists of pre-existing footage Snyder shot before leaving the original “Justice League” production in 2017. To pull off the four-hour version, Snyder needed to not only assemble the footage but also to finish extensive special effects work. There is only one new scene Snyder shot last year for his “Justice League,” and it’s the post-apocalyptic Knightmare epilogue involving the return of Jared Leto’s “Joker.” “Zack always felt the ultimate for him was to see Batman and Joker together in a scene,” producer Deborah Snyder told Insider about including a single new scene for the director’s cut. “It was something we thought about while working on the movie but couldn’t figure out how it would fit. So when we had this opportunity to do the movie again he said he really wanted to do it.”
It took a couple years for Zack Snyder to be able to convince Jared Leto to agree that reprising his “Suicide Squad” iteration of Joker was a smart idea. As Deborah explained. “Zack had talked to Jared a few times about it since ‘Suicide Squad.’ ‘He was like ‘I don’t know,’ then it went to ‘Okay, maybe’ and then it was finally, ‘Okay.’” Zack Snyder geared up to film the new sequence now that Leto was on board, but getting all of the actors together on the same set last year during the pandemic proved to be difficult. The scene in question — the Knightmare — features Batman (Ben Affleck), The Flash (Ezra Miller), Cyborg (Ray Fisher), Mera (Amber Heard), Deathstoke (Joe Manganiello), and the Joker (Jared Leto) preparing to battle Superman (Henry Cavill), who, in the dream, goes evil after a tragedy. The scene was filmed without all of these actors ever being on the same set. “We actually shot Ben separate from Jared,” Deborah Snyder told Insider. “And Ezra was shooting ‘Fantastic Beasts’ so he was in England and Zack had to direct him over Zoom…It was really fun to be able to do that, to get everyone together to shoot that.” Per Insider: “Deborah said the only people who were actually together on set were Affleck, Fisher, Heard, and Manganiello.” “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” is now streaming on HBO Max. Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
