Some HBO Max subscribers had an unexpected preview of “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” on Monday, when the four-hour superhero movie started showing instead of the Warner Bros. film. “Tom and Jerry”.
Doug Bass, real estate agent and digital marketing analyst based in Charlotte, NC, said Variety he was “just looking for a little background TV while I worked, and when I clicked on ‘Tom and Jerry’, [the] Snyder Cut started playing. “
Bass quickly posted a screenshot of the film with Bruce Wayne’s back (Ben Affleck), joking that someone from HBO Max was “getting fired”.
@hbomax someone is being fired … Tom and Jerry, this is not …#SnyderCut pic.twitter.com/B0ReNp2JR2
– Doug (@ThenDougSaid) March 8, 2021
About an hour after the feed started, Bass says, he noticed that the image definition started to degrade, so an error message appeared on his screen and the movie disappeared.
Variety confirmed that the version Bass watched was in fact Snyder’s version of the film, which is due to premiere on the streaming service on March 18.
“‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’ was temporarily available on HBO Max and the error was corrected in minutes,” said a WarnerMedia spokesman. Despite the statement, however, the film was available for at least an hour.
Bass says he “was never a big fan of DC films”, including the 2017 theatrical version of “Justice League”, which was largely remade and reissued from Snyder’s version by director Joss Whedon after Snyder left the film due to creative differences with the studio and a family tragedy. But after obtaining a preview of the restored version of Snyder, which lasts just over four hours in total, Bass says he has been converted.
“I planned to watch after the 18th at some point,” he says. “But now I’m ready for the 18th.” On Twitter, Bass also said the footage he saw “is the best DC movie I’ve ever seen”.
No one from HBO Max contacted Bass about the error, he says.
Todd Spangler contributed to this report.