While filmmaker Zack Snyder is getting ready to release the second part of his “Rebel Moon” Netflix war film later this month, ‘The Scargiver,’ the director can multitask and is also thinking about the past. In a new Empire interview, Synder says he is still itching to get another crack at his 2011 fantasy film, “Sucker Punch.” So, after convincing Warner Bros. to pay an estimated $70 million for the streaming exclusive version of the DC Comics pic, “Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” it sounds like the director wants to try a similar thing and give “Sucker Punch” a revisionist face-lift.
The director spoke with Empire Magazine, teasing he’s still asking Legendary and Warner Bros. about giving him the chance to “fix” the movie. “The only movie I would change is ‘Sucker Punch,’ because it never really got finished correctly,” Snyder told Empire of his 2011 effort. “Even the director’s cut is not the correct cut. It’s just an extended version. If I had the chance, I would fix that movie.”
However, it’s not from a lack of trying, as Snyder reveals he keeps asking the studio about doing it and even has new footage ready. “I have the footage already shot; they just have to let me put it together,” Snyder explained. “We ask every now and then. We have to ask again. I think there has to be a window when no one’s got the movie.”
Snyder would need permission from Legendary/WB before moving forward, and that seems like a significant roadblock. The glaring problem is that the likelihood of Warner Bros. having the desire to revisit “Sucker Punch”—a box office failure that only mustered $89.7 million globally— seems extremely unlikely as more money would have to be poured into completing whatever edit/cut that Snyder has in mind. Given the costs involved and the way Snyder already seemingly angered Warner Bros. by encouraging toxic fandom to let them have their way and inflate the #TheSnyderCut hashtag campaign, it seems doubtful they would fall for the same ask again.
Despite being a PG-13 fantasy film, “Sucker Punch” has a grim premise. It is a bizarre mix of an Easter Egg hunt mixed with sexual violence elements posing as feminism and empowerment. The young women in the film are brutalized and exploited in a mental institution and are still placed in wacky fetish outfits for incoherent and dragged-out CGI-driven action sequences that are obviously designed to titillate teenage boys. Throughout the movie, the girls are assaulted, killed, and pimped out with a lobotomization looming over their heads via a maniacal doctor.
“Sucker Punch” also has a meager 22% Rotten Tomatoes score and a low 47% audience score, so it’s unclear who the audience for more from this film would be. Either way, fans of the filmmaker won’t have to wait too long for more of his work as Snyder’s sci-fi epic “Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver” will be released this April 19 exclusively on Netflix.