After the DC Extended Universe returns to mainstream media with Wonder Woman 1984 releasing on Christmas Day, all eyes will quickly turn to the upcoming Snyder Cut of Justice League. Zack Snyder’s four-hour epic has been in the works through all of 2020, and after being teased since the movie’s theatrical release three years ago, fans are more hyped than ever.
The movie is set to be a retelling of Justice League using Zack Snyder’s full vision, taking every trace of Joss Whedon’s work out of the picture. New quotes from Snyder himself hint that his movie will even be a different rating from Whedon's.
NEWS
In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Zack Snyder revealed that his cut of Justice League will likely come with an R-rating. Snyder says it will also likely have a short theatrical run along with its debut on HBO Max.
While he hasn’t heard from the MPAA on this change, Snyer gave this quote giving his thoughts on the matter:
Here's one piece of information nobody knows: The movie is insane and so epic and is probably rated R — that's one thing I think will happen, that it will be an R-rated version, for sure. We haven't heard from the MPAA, but that's my gut.”
Snyder even went into specifics about why the R-rating may be inevitable, citing two examples of language and violence with this quote:
There's one scene where Batman drops an F-bomb. Cyborg is not too happy with what's going on with his life before he meets the Justice League, and he tends to speak his mind. And Steppenwolf is pretty much just hacking people in half. So [the rating would be due to] violence and profanity, probably both.”
WHAT THIS MEANS
Snyder has led the way on other R-rated projects throughout his career, most of the time due to having very few violent scenes in movies like 300 and Watchman. This will be his first R-rated movie in the DCEU, although it wouldn’t take very much at all to push this rating from the usual PG-13 marks held by the franchise’s first nine movies.
The Batman F-bomb should have quite the impact as long as it comes in the right moment, and the violence Snyder is planning to show will undoubtedly make its mark through the course of the Snyder Cut. With the successes of recent R-rated films like Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool and Joaquin Phoenix's Joker, it seems that Hollywood is becoming more open to their big-budget comic book movies being catered to mature audiences.
The biggest mystery to solve will be how deep Snyder will go into R-rated territory, which has a nearly unlimited scope of where directors can take language and violence. The rating will allow for Steppenwolf’s scarier redesign and persona to shine in full, and hopefully it will allow the Snyder Cut to live up to its potential.
The Snyder Cut of Justice League will release on HBO Max sometime in 2021.
