How Zack Snyder’s Justice League Sequels Were Different From His Other DC Films

Zack Snyder’s Justice League is part 3 of a planned 5-movie arc, and the two Justice League sequels were going to be very different from the first.

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The two planned sequels to Zack Snyder’s Justice League were completely different stories from their predecessors. The long-discussed Snyder Cut finally hit HBO Max and other streaming platforms around the world after a long push for Snyder’s original version of the film to be released. It’s release was soon followed by the new hashtag of #RestoreTheSnyderVerse, and with the response to the film itself and calls for Snyder’s arc to be finished, it’s worth looking at just where he intended to take things.

Snyder charted a specific five-movie arc for his DC films, with the Snyder Cut being part three of the planned story. Though it grew into an ensemble with the formation of the Justice League, the essence of the arc was a Superman-centric story about his arrival to Earth and how he inspires heroism in characters like Batman along with the whole human population. This was all to happen over the course of five radically different movies.

Though only three of the intended five movies in Snyder’s arc have been realized, each occupies a completely different genre and tells a completely different story. Additionally, a look at what Justice League 2 and Justice League 3 would have been has been unveiled through a whiteboard layout showcased at an AT&T exhibit earlier in 2021. Here’s how each movie in Snyder’s part arc was different, along with the different genres Justice League 2 and Justice League 3 were to embody.

Snyder’s DCEU Movies Were All Different Genres

With Snyder having a specific five-part arc planned, both the released and unproduced ones stand out for how different they are not just from other superhero movies, but from each other as well. The first movie in the arc, 2013’s Man of Steel, told Superman’s origin story in the form of a first contact movie. The 2016 follow-up Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice transitioned the story into a political thriller, with an abundance of talking heads deriving from the influence of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns on the film.

With the release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, the third chapter of the arc is a Lord of the Rings-style high fantasy adventure. With the SnyderVerse currently at part of three of the originally intended five, it’s become a lot more clear that Snyder’s DC arc was meant to be something completely different in each individual installment. Thanks to the whiteboards at the aforementioned AT&T exhibit, we now have a good idea of how Snyder’s five-movie arc was going to conclude with Justice League 2 and Justice League 3, and both would’ve continued to shift things up.

Justice League 2 Was a Post-Apocalyptic Movie

Per Snyder’s own words, the whiteboards for the Justice League sequels need to be viewed as a loose blueprint due to behind-the-scenes reworking since they were written. Justice League 2 was, in essence, to be a post-apocalyptic movie predicated on the Knightmare future teased in Batman v Superman and the Snyder Cut. As seen in the brief tease of the Knightmare during Superman’s resurrection, Darkseid would have slain Aquaman and Wonder Woman, murdered Lois Lane, and used the Anti-Life Equation to corrupt Superman, bringing him to his side and using him to conquer the Earth.

The movie was then to center on Batman, with the help of The Flash, Cyborg, Mera, Deathstroke, and the Joker (along with John Stewart Green Lantern, played by Wayne T. Carr), formulating a plan to undo Darkseid’s invasion by sending Barry Allen back in time on the Cosmic Treadmill in order to stop Darkseid from bringing Superman under his control. Similar to The Dark Knight Returns’ influences on Batman v Superman, Justice League 2 had elements of the story from the video game and comic series Injustice: Gods Among Us, both involving a dark turn for Superman after the murder of the pregnant Lois Lane, with Batman leading an underground rebellion. However, it would’ve also moved the story into a Mad Max: Fury Road-style post-apocalyptic desert setting, with The Flash successfully resetting the timeline to prevent Superman’s fall to Darkseid, and setting the stage for the last chapter of Snyder’s arc.

Justice League 3 Was A War Movie

With Superman now freed of Darkseid’s corruption and Earth’s fall to Apokolips now averted, Darkseid’s coming invasion still remained, and this would have been the basis for Justice League 3. Under the leadership of Superman, the League was to marshall the forces of mankind, Atlantis, and Themyscira, in a last stand against Apokolips mirroring the history lesson showing Darkseid’s first failed invasion. With additional help from the Green Lantern Corps, Justice League 3 was to be a full-blown war movie with Earth battling invading aliens, and as the whiteboards describe the film, “The entire world becomes a Justice League”. Reading like a superhero version of Return of the King or Independence Day, the closest DC comparison to Justice League 3 is probably the 2020 animated film Justice League Dark: Apokolips War, which also centered on the League’s final battle with Darkseid and similarly acts as a concluding chapter to the DC Animated Movie Universe.

Superman, having taken on the black suit after his resurrection (save for his time under Darkseid’s control), would also transition back to his classic red and blue suit, with his leadership of the League and Earth against Darkseid paying off Jor-El’s words that “In time, you will help them accomplish wonders”. With Justice League 3 to be an interstellar war film, there would also be casualties, with Batman, having previously been badly injured by Darkseid in the last movie, making the ultimate sacrifice. Lois and Clark would have then honored the fallen Dark Knight by naming him Bruce Kent, who would go onto become his namesake’s successor as Batman 20 years later.

As of right now, Warner Bros. seems firm in their stance that the Snyder Cut is the curtain closer on Snyder’s DC arc, despite continued demand from fans for Justice League sequels to be pulled out of the freezer and given new life. Whether those requests ever end up being heeded remains to be seen. Nevertheless, with three-fifths of the Snyder’s five-movie arc released and a general roadmap of how it was to conclude now available, it’s clear that like Man of Steel and Batman v Superman before them, Justice League 2 and Justice League 3 would have tethered themselves narratively to Zack Snyder’s Justice League while feeling nothing at all like it.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/justice-league-zack-snyder-cut-sequels-different-genres/