As part of "The Dreamscapes of Zack Snyder's Justice League" exhibit in Dallas , director Zack Snyder has included a series of storyboards that offer a better look at his full vision for the film and future sequels.
A key part of this showed that, as the original post-credits scene set-up, Lex Luthor would have formed his own Injustice League of villains . Those included in the evil-doing line-up would have been Doctor Poison, Captain Cold, Riddler, Orm, and Black Manta.
Despite the fact Snyder was mainly building his own story within the connected DC universe, he would have pulled villains from across franchises including Wonder Woman , The Flash , The Batman , and Aquaman . And now, Snyder has revealed more about the lineup that never was...
LEX LUTHOR'S INJUSTICE LEAGUE AND THE ROLE OF THE RIDDLER
In an interview with Beyond the Trailer , Snyder was asked about the line-up of the Injustice League and the decision to include the Riddler in the line-up who had been originally been planned to appear in The Batman. The director explained this was planned before Ben Affleck had signed on to direct, that “it was that early:”
“At that point, Ben [Affleck] was considering it, but I don't think he'd committed to directing it yet. It was that early.”
When asked if there were any villains he wanted to bring to life, Snyder shared his excitement to include the Riddler under the employ of Lex to “figure out anti-life” as he “would employ him to understand it” :
“I liked the use of Riddler by Lex to figure out anti-life. I thought that as a concept was really cool that we would employ him to understand it. It's a big equation, it's a mystery, and he's the one that could decipher it, and he does, but you'll have to read the thing to find out.”
Host Grace Randolph interjected that she had “never seen Riddler used that way,” leading the director to explain they “thought it was pretty cool. He's like a tool. And he was doing it for Lex.”
The former DC filmmaker went on to explain the link to “Batman's journey at that part of the movie” in which he would be investigating Lex and “following the traces of the mystery to find him:”
“The fact that Batman's journey at that part of the movie is to try and find out what Lex is up to. So he would have tracked him to this place where he was working it out. It's just like a movie moment where he's following the traces of the mystery to find him”
The full interview can be viewed below:
SNYDER'S GRAND VISION FOR THE JUSTICE LEAGUE
The release of Zack Snyder's Justice League places the DCEU in an incredibly unique position of offering viewers a peek of what — in a different world — could have been.
The cinematic world of DC superheroes currently has a line-up that takes the franchise all the way through to Summer 2023 with the Shazam sequel . However, in that extensive line-up, there is no major team-up or Justice League film involved with the studio seemingly set in solo properties.
However, it seems Snyder's vision for the franchise was much different as the director planned a saga of films in the same vein as The Lord of the Rings as an expansive Justice League story spanning a whole trilogy.
The structure the director was building bears a strong resemblance to the MCU in which characters would have been introduced separately in solo films before coming together as a team. In this case, the same would've applied with both heroes and villains as the two leagues were gradually formed before coming up against each other in a blockbuster epic.
Fans won't have to wait much longer to get a closer look at this alternate world as Zack Snyder's Justice League releases on March 18, exclusively on HBO Max .
