Zack Snyder Says Original ‘Justice League’ Script Was “Darker & Weirder” Before WB Asked For A “Funnier” Movie

Even before the whole Snyder Cut situation, there were plenty of reports floating around that behind-the-scenes drama surrounded the Warner Bros. film, “Justice League,” while it was in production. And one of the biggest bits of information that was disseminated was that the studio wanted “Justice League” to include more humor, as Marvel Studios films were vastly outperforming the DCEU products directed by Zack Snyder. Now, years later, the filmmaker behind “Justice League” talks about that situation.

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In the newest episode of the “Pizza Film School” podcast, hosted by the Russo Brothers, Joe and Anthony Russo got to speak with Zack Snyder. The focus on this part of the podcast is, largely, Snyder’s history and how he became a filmmaker. Though, towards the end, they do touch on the development process surrounding “Justice League.” Obviously, we’re not going to break down the whole “Justice League” situation, as that has been done to death, but Snyder did open up about one aspect that has been talked about for years—Warner Bros. asking for a new tone for the film.

Snyder seems to suggest that Warner Bros. reaction to the “Justice League” script, co-written by Chris Terrio, was a reaction to the negative response “Batman v. Superman” received from audiences for being too dark, bleak, and humorless. This is compounded by the fact that Marvel Studios was releasing massive films and doing larger box office than nearly everything that was coming out of Snyder’s DCEU.

“The script for Justice League did evolve out of that,” Snyder said about the how card-making, note-taking writing process that often shifts scenes, their placement, and order was something that happened organically to ‘Justice League,’ but then veered off into a digression about the studio and their notes. “I’ll be honest, the script, what happened with ‘Justice League,’ because we had a very… the original script was much darker and weirder, and then ‘Batman Vs. Superman’ came out, and the studio was like, ‘It’s not funny enough, people want funnier movies, they want funny stuff in it.’”

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“We did go back and did a… lightened the movie overall,” he added. “And I would say my cut of ‘Justice League’ is a sort of in-between… I always preserved some of the more intense stuff that I shot anyway, I thought they would, in retrospect, maybe want anyhow—making sure, of course, I got what was on the page—but we had this other script.”

Snyder’s talked about it in the past, but he recalled how the original script really centered on Amy Adams’ Lois Lane character and how she became more of a triangle character who, in one iteration, had become intimate with Batman, during Superman’s death and absence.

“I think in the original script, Lois and Batman got together briefly, there was this whole other thing that everyone said, ‘Oh my god, you can’t do that,’” Snyder recalled, retelling this story, but going into a bit more details of the thematics and thinking behind the choices. “Cause Superman is dead and Lois is this really amazing person. She’s not really, her part in ‘Justice League’ is really [small]. We had written it, especially since I had Amy [Adams] and Amy is a genius, I really felt like we should lean on Amy because she’s such a great actress, a force of nature.”

“So, I just loved the idea of setting up this sort of concept,” he continued. “It’s sort of like in a movie when the husband goes off to war and he’s dead and the wife moves on and the husband appears, and he’s like, ‘I’m not dead, I’m fine.’ How do you deal with that? I was really into that concept—that Superman can be brought back to life. So now what happens with this? And it was that Lois was like, ‘I’m still in love with Superman,’ you were kind of a thing, but at that point, Batman had already fallen in love with Lois.”

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Snyder also admitted that idea fell away early and then they moved on to the studio notes but admitted that he and the “Argo” screenwriter were maybe not the best writers to make the “Justice League” film funnier.

“So we had done the changes for the studio and I’ll be frank, Chris [Terrio] and I are not the funniest guys in the world, we’re not like awesome joke writers—I’m just 100% honest about that [laughs]—and we had Ezra and he’s pretty funny, that was kind of his role, to be the Flash, and be young, and be a little irreverent and in awe of Batman and Superman,” Snyder said. “And he did a great job, and that part was great, but I do think the process—and it’s classic studio Hollywood process—and in their defense, they can only react to what they react to…”

Snyder didn’t really get a chance to finish his thought and the Russos basically jumped in, but the sentiment is clear that studios are reactive, asking for things that they think the audiences want, but being so reactive, behind-the-curve and glacial in pace, what they want now, in the moment, is often now what audiences want two years from now and so it’s just best to follow your own instincts.

You can hear the full conversation below: