Zack Snyder is still talking about the "better" version of Justice League he never got to make
Gather around, everybody! It’s time for another crucial update from Zack Snyder about how much better his DC movies would’ve been if he had been able to make them without the negative influence of the damn movie studios and all of the cruel moviegoers that hate his stupid superhero movies. We just heard a couple months ago that he had all sorts of crazy plans for Justice League sequels, including Green Lantern showing up to save the day and big bad Darkseid taking over the world at some point—as teased in that seemingly pointless “Knightmare” dream sequence from Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice. Snyder has also talked about wishing he could’ve killed off Batman in a movie at some point, something that Ben Affleck has since gone ahead and done on his own.
This time around, Snyder is directly addressing the “Knightmare” scene, in which Batman gets captured by some soldiers wearing Superman emblems before getting eye-lasered by an evil version of the big blue boy scout himself. As reported by Collider, Snyder talked about some of his canned Justice League plans at a recent screening of the director’s cut of Batman V Superman, saying the negative response that “a vocal minority” had to BvS prevented him from doing some cool stuff he had planned in his original, un-filmed Justice League screenplay. (Before we get into it, dismissing everyone who didn’t like the movie where Batman murders people with guns as being part of a “vocal minority” is some Trumpy bullshit.)
Regarding the Knightmare scene, Snyder reportedly planned to make that an actual flash-forward that would be seen in Justice League—which actually makes more sense than it being a dream—with Superman having been turned evil by Darkseid. That would explain why Green Lantern would’ve shown up in Justice League, but it’s wild to think that Snyder really wanted to put off having Superman join the Justice League for as long as possible. The other big reveal from Snyder’s talk is that Darkseid would’ve killed Lois Lane, somehow setting off the chain of events that destroyed the world, leading Batman and Cyborg to send the Flash back in time to try and save her (explaining that now-unresolved tease where Flash shows up in BvS with an ominous warning for Batman).
This all may seem like an interesting “what might’ve been” scenario, but in order for this version of Justice League to happen, Batman V Superman would’ve had to be a big enough hit to convince Warner Bros. to keep letting Snyder do whatever ill-conceived shit he wanted to do. That would’ve required living in a universe where audiences could get on board with the Martha scene or Batman’s aforementioned habit of mowing down goons with the machine guns mounted on his car. Our universe has its issues, sure, but that doesn’t sound like a particularly appealing universe to live in. After all, it’s really not a coincidence that the best DC movies are the ones Snyder wasn’t involved with, so maybe we don’t really need to keep reflecting on all of the exciting stuff he could’ve done if he weren’t limited by, you know, reality.