We all knew it. Everyone who sat through the 2017 theatrical cut of “Justice League” knew it.
Appearing on the "Happy Sad Confused" podcast, Affleck didn't pull back when asked about the Joss Whedon reshoots that turned Zack Snyder's movie into a tonally schizophrenic mess. "If you want the low point of my career, it was that," he said.
If you remember, Snyder stepped away from the film in 2017 after the death of his daughter, and Warner Bros. brought in Whedon to "fix" it. By Snyder's own recent estimate, Whedon shot roughly 60 new pages of material. The result was a bad movie, and a box office disappointment for a movie that was supposed to be DC's ‘Avengers.’ Things only got uglier afterward, with Ray Fisher and then Gal Gadot going public about Whedon's on-set behavior. Gadot said he threatened her, which Whedon has denied.
Affleck was blunt about what went down:
The experience of “Justice League” was so negative for lots of different reasons, some of which have to do with where I was at personally and some of which had to do with the tragedy that happened at that time. I saw how not to make a movie like that, which is where the studio is at odds with the filmmaker. You are really making a mistake. I was really glad and gratified that Zack got to release [the Snyder Cut]. That was fucking great. I was really happy for him. That was shitty, him being taken off that movie and the reshoots that we did.
He went further, and this is the part that stings:
Somebody's death by suicide eclipses everything. The way in which that was, I thought, used as an excuse [to replace Zack] was one of the shittiest things I've ever seen. It was so gross.
That's about as direct as an A-lister gets about a major studio, and Affleck can probably say it now since most of the 2017 Warner Bros brass is no longer in charge.
When Snyder had to step down after his family's tragedy and Whedon was announced as his replacement, it was all done under the guise of "reshoots." But word quickly got out that it was much more than additional photography. It was a total reworking, essentially a brand-new movie, with 60 new pages of script. So when Affleck says Warner Bros. took advantage of Snyder's tragedy, he's not wrong.
None of this is exactly news to anyone who followed the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut saga, and Affleck has hinted at it before, calling the shoot a "nadir experience" that killed his desire to keep playing Batman. That said, hearing him tie the studio's decision directly to exploiting a family tragedy is something else. The 2021 Snyder Cut was flawed in its own ways, but it was at least one filmmaker's vision. The theatrical version was a committee product.
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