The recent news that director Zack Snyder would be stepping down from ‘Justice League‘ after the death of one of his daughters was shocking to say the least. Immediately, WB announced that Joss Whedon would step in as director to see that the film is completed. Whedon was already hired onto the project as a writer for the reshoots, since signing on to helm the in-development ‘Batgirl‘ film for the studio. Up until this time, Whedon had been working closely with Snyder on tightening up the film, as well as injecting his signature brand of humor into the project.
We’ve already seen the first trailer for ‘Justice League‘, which was clearly 100% Snyder. We als
saw the release of a special extended Comic-Con trailer, which had more of the Whedon brand, specifically with scenes of The Flash (Ezra Miller) in action. I’m sure the soon-to-be-released final trailer will give us more of a solid indication of how this movie will actually play out, tonally speaking.
Since the shake-up occurred, people have been speculating about how much of Whedon’s influence would actually make it into the final film. According to DGA rules, for Whedon to be credited as director, he must have shot 51% of the the picture. With a looming November 17, 2017 release date, chances are that Snyder will retain his director credit, while Whedon will receive his writing credit. Even with Whedon stepping in as director, I don’t think that the film will change as drastically as some might believe.
In the meantime, Ben Affleck recently spoke about the the shake-up in a recent interview with EW, as well as how it will affect the final product:
“It’s a little bit unorthodox. Zack had a family tragedy, and stepped off, which was horrible. For the movie, the best person we could’ve possibly found was Joss. We got really lucky that he stepped in.” Affleck, who helmed the Best Picture-winning Argo, describes the resulting film as “an interesting product of two directors, both with kind of unique visions, both with really strong takes. I’ve never had that experience before making a movie. I have to say, I really love working with Zack, and I really love the stuff we’ve done with Joss.”
This feels like the diplomatic answer from an actor that was probably being pulled in two different directions by the shift, however it doesn’t feel like Affleck is lying in any sense for the word. When asked about the reshoots on the project, Affleck responded:
“I’ve never worked on a movie that didn’t do reshoots,” Affleck says. “Argo, we did reshoots for a week and a half! Four days on Gone Baby Gone!”
Although it is fairly common for reshoots to happen on big movies, the fact that they had to bring someone like Whedon in for the reshoots isn’t a good sign. Affleck however, is much more confident about the upcoming film, saying that:
“This is a really nice time to work in DC. They’re hitting their stride. They’re getting it right. It’s starting to feel like it’s really working.”
It’s pretty common knowledge that Affleck wasn’t the biggest fan of ‘Batman v. Superman‘. I just hope that Affleck’s comments aren’t sugar coating what I’m sure is an unusual experience for any actor. While it’s my prediction that ‘Justice League’ will have inherent tonal problems (Just look at Superman 2), I still hope that will still be a fun movie, especially with Whedon crafting the final film.
Time will tell, as ‘Justice League‘ is due out on November 17, 2017.
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