Zack Snyder says his cut of Justice League has 'a solid 2 1/2 hours of unseen footage'

Director Zack Snyder seemingly contradicted himself today while breaking down the HBO Max trailer for his upcoming cut of Justice League. Just a few days back, the director went on record, stating that his version of the movie (out next year) would only have 4 or 5 minutes of new content. Today, he seemed to recant that figure with a new estimate that far exceeds the first one.

"I am looking at the actual visual effects shots because the cut is locked, so I'm just looking at these shots everyday as they come in," he said. "It's really exciting and I'm excited for you guys to see the giant amount of movie that you have coming your way ... It is probably a solid 2 and 1/2 hours of unseen footage in this movie. I would imagine, something like that. So yeah, that's gonna be fun for everyone to experience this for the first time."

Right now, it's unclear whether "unseen footage" means deleted scenes or reshoots. Since the fabled "Snyder Cut" will be about four hours long, it stands to reason that there's going to be two (or more) hours of stuff that wasn't in the existing theatrical cut finished by Joss Whedon. How much was trimmed to get the blockbuster down to a two-hour runtime and how much went un-filmed after Snyder left the project? Apparently... a whole lot?

Watch the updated trailer below:

Mysteries and contradictory comments notwithstanding, Snyder's breakdown of the trailer yielded a bunch of interesting tidbits that helped shine a light on some of the theories SYFY WIRE put forth in its own breakdown. Taking to Vero (his social media platform of choice), Snyder went shot-by-shot, offering up detailed commentary about specific sequences and teasing out others with vague hints.

For instance, he pointed out a blink-and-you'll-miss-it Joker playing card that whips across the screen at the 14-second mark, which depicts a post-apocalyptic Earth overthrown by Darkseid and his minions. In our own analysis of the trailer, we noticed the decimated Hall of Justice, but somehow missed the card.

"That's the same card that was taped to Batman's gun in [Batman v Superman] in the 'Knightmare' sequence," the filmmaker said, while refusing to give up other details. "I don't want to give too much away with this shot because there's a lot of cryptic messages in it and I don't want to explain too much of it ... Suffice it to say, a lot of the pieces are in this shot to what's planned," he added.

Snyder also talked at length about Ezra Miller's Flash and how he didn't want the character to be able to move people around via the Speed Force. "I know a lot of people love that aspect of it; I just don't ... I think it goes against physics," he explained. "You [can] say they're protected by the Speed Force, but that's open to interpretation. I feel like if you grab someone at the speed he's moving at, you could literally tear their arm out of its socket. He's moving so fast, it would literally peel the flesh off of somebody's body, so he's gotta be super careful with humans inside of the Speed Force."

Credit: Warner Bros./HBO Max

While Barry can save people with his powers in the theatrical cut of Justice League, Snyder's take on the matter makes a little more sense, drama-wise. If Flash can't get people out of harm's way by being really fast, then he needs to get creative and solve problems without relying on his god-like abilities. In the Snyder Cut, we first meet Barry during the "doggy daycare sequence," as Snyder described it. Barry is applying for a job at a pet store when he saves Iris West (Candice Patton) from a car crash. He moves so quickly, in fact, that his shoes are incinerated in the process.

"We have a shot in the movie where he turns and the shoes just explode off his feet because they're not ready for that. A normal shoe wouldn't stay together," Snyder said. "It just shows how he needs his suit." 

Sadly, the director confirmed that we won't see "a ton" of Iris in Justice League, nor will we get a lot of backstory when it comes to Barry's powers.

"I left that piece of story still out there to be told. I'd love to get at it at some point, but we'll see," Snyder continued. That said, we'll get an exploration of the character's relationship with his incarcerated father (played by Billy Crudup). All of these elements are good set-up for the standalone Flash project (written by Christina Hodson and helmed by Andy Muschietti) that's scheduled to hit theaters in summer 2022. "There's a lot of stuff happening with Barry, a lot of seeds planted that I'm excited to see more of," Snyder said.

HBO Max will release Zack Snyder's Justice League sometime in 2021. The film will be broken up into four, one-hour segments, but the streaming platform is also working on a version that will allow fans to watch the entire thing in one go.