When “Justice League of Zack Snyder” debuts on HBO Max this Thursday, it will mark the culmination of years of grassroots campaign by Snyder fans, typified by the ubiquitous hashtag #ReleasetheSnyderCut. In November 2019, several “Justice League” stars – including Ben Affleck and Gal Gadot – joined Snyder to tweet the hashtag, a critical seal of approval for the campaign that helped convince the Warner Bros. boss, Toby Emmerich, allowing Snyder to complete his original vision for the film.
These same stars, however, were notably absent from the campaign to promote the real release of the film. To be sure, Affleck, Gadot, Jason Momoa and Ray Fisher posted trailers and posters of Snyder’s cut on their respective Twitter and Instagram accounts, and Henry Cavill joined Snyder in May for the official announcement that Snyder’s cut was really happening. Affleck, Gadot, Cavill, Fisher and Ezra Miller also promoted the Snyder cut during the DC Fandome fan event in August.
But in the critical weeks leading up to the premiere of “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” on HBO Max, none of these actors participated in the standard methods of promoting a film of this size: press conferences, talk show appearances, press conferences, program presenters award. Instead, Snyder and his wife and production partner Deborah Snyder have borne the brunt of promoting the new “Justice League” on their own.
In a larger interview with Variety about the new “Justice League”, the Snyders say they are behind at least part of the promotion that the actors did for the film.
“We would supply things to the cast,” says Deborah Snyder.
“I would simply say, ‘Jason [Momoa], here’s the new trailer ‘”, says Zack Snyder. “He would say, ‘Thanks, bro!’ It was not a real coordinated effort. “
Deborah Snyder adds that HBO Max also helped distribute social media resources for the film, something that sources familiar with Zack Snyder’s “Justice League” plans echoed. But in particular, these sources also sound like a similar refrain: this film is really Snyder’s baby, and he is the one who deserves to be in front of him. In addition to social media posts, these sources say, HBO Max has not been looking for a bigger campaign with the cast. It would also presumably cost more money to transport the film’s A-list stars to a new round of interviews.
All contractual obligations to promote the “Justice League” were probably fulfilled by the 2017 theatrical release. But Snyder said that HBO Max spent about $ 70 million to complete the film and, from the beginning, cut the film. Snyder was announced as a landmark title for the still fledgling streaming service, which so far has not even come close to the subscriber base of its main competitors, Netflix and Disney Plus. Why wouldn’t Warner Media and HBO Max actively enlist their biggest stars to help maximize attention to the film and, hopefully, get the audience to subscribe to the service?
One factor affecting the launch of PR for Snyder’s cut, obviously, is the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of a red carpet debut, for example, Snyder will join filmmaker Kevin Smith for an online “virtual debut” event on Wednesday night. But Variety I heard that HBO Max got in touch last week with at least some of the “Justice League” actors to ask if they could send a quick video saying hello to the fans, with a final push on Monday. It is not clear at the moment whether any of the actors were able to obey.
Several of the main cast members of the “Justice League” are also engaged in other projects. Affleck is recording “The Tender Bar” with director (and former Batman) George Clooney; It is said that Affleck should also reprise his role as Batman in “The Flash”, with Miller and director Andy Muschietti. Meanwhile, Miller is finishing work on the third film “Fantastic Beasts”. And Gadot, who recently ended a full campaign for the release of “Wonder Woman 1984” on HBO Max, has been promoting the National Geographic documentary series “Impact”, of which she is an executive producer.
Then again, if the pandemic made it any easier, it was promotional interviews. It is much simpler for the talent on the list to jump to Zoom for a few minutes from your home (or hotel or trailer) than to separate days or weeks from your schedules for a traditional press tour.
The only member of the central “Justice League” cast that has aggressively promoted “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” in recent weeks is Fisher, who regularly posts on Twitter and Instagram about the film and repeatedly engages the fan base to garner more excitement. Fisher, however, is also engaged in a protracted public struggle with WarnerMedia over how the company handled its allegations of misconduct in the “Justice League” set in 2017, after Snyder left the project due to a family tragedy. Fisher accused Joss Whedon, who was hired to finish the film, of engaging in “rude, abusive, unprofessional and completely unacceptable” behavior, according to a viral tweet he sent in July.
Gadot and Momoa publicly supported Fisher, and Gadot even answered questions about Fisher’s claims by promoting “WW84”.
But in recent weeks, WarnerMedia executives have made it clear that they want to pursue the dispute with Fisher – the company completed its investigation in December and announced that an unspecified “corrective action” had been taken. Any interview the cast does about Snyder’s cut, however, would inevitably add more oxygen to Fisher’s story; Snyder himself was asked about Fisher’s claims in recent interviews. (Miller, for his part, has not yet spoken publicly about a video that appeared last April, in which he appears to be smothering a woman outside a bar in Iceland.)
Another factor may be just the unique nature of Snyder’s cut. More than any studio film of its size, the film was created expressly to satisfy the desire of a central fan base, which effectively wished the project to exist through an ongoing social media campaign. So the fans are where the Snyders say they kept their attention to promote the film, movie stars or not.
“It was very organic for me to be with the fans and the movement that made it happen,” says Zack Snyder. “At some point, there was a discussion about whether or not my fans had the breadth and reach to generate enough buzz. I was like, well, these are the guys who convinced Warner Bros. doing the crazy thing they just did. “
“We market a lot of these films and we’ve never done that before,” adds Deborah Snyder. “But I think we just want us to be faithful, to like the basis of everything and for the campaign to be live on social networks.”
Maintaining that connection with fans has become paramount, especially after some fans also started using the suicide prevention fundraising campaign in honor of Zack Snyder’s daughter Autumn, whose death by suicide led to her decision to leave the “Justice League” – and return to complete your vision.
“The fans and the charity members were things that, without them, were just a failure for us,” says Deborah Snyder. “It was important for us to be respectful to the fans, and not suddenly say, ‘Okay, thanks for taking us to this point, now let’s do something else and you are not going to be involved. ‘”