Now that “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” is out in the open, audiences are free to compare it to the theatrical cut and find all the ways Snyder’s vision was changed. It is fair to say that much of what is being discussed paints a negative light on the theatrical cut. After writer Chris Terrio compared the script changes to it being “vandalized,” now it is cinematographer Fabian Wagner who is opening up about the changes made to his work on the film after Joss Whedon took over.
In an interview with IndieWire, Wagner described his initial reactions to finding out how extensive the “Justice League” re-shoots actually were. “I knew how many days they were reshooting, so that kind of sets off the alarm bells,” Wagner said. “You think, “Wow, that’s a lot of,” you know, “How’s that going to work?”
Wagner was one of the first members of the crew to speak out prominently about the “Snyder Cut,” saying in 2017 that the theatrical cut was “even shorter than I expected,” and again in 2019 he alluded that only a small percentage of the original footage was used. Now that Wagner has seen both versions, he talks freely about his feelings knowing what was changed. “It was very strange. It was a very devastating experience,” Wagner said.
“I knew the movie I shot with Zack and I knew what Zack was going to do with it. I could see the movie Zack had in his head,” the cinematographer continued. “So to see that movie, and to see the color grade and everything we aimed for and that we did in our rushes [dailies were generated with a predetermined color grade and timing], for example, was completely different. Yeah, I was devastated.
One interesting tidbit from the interview is Wagner’s admission that there was no chance of Snyder’s full version ever making it to screens, simply because of how long it was. Wagner admits “I always say Zack doesn’t make movies to a certain time frame. He takes the time he takes to make his movies. This was always going to be a long movie. You have six superheroes with backstories. That’s why you’d call a two-hour version kind of a massacre.”