Zack Snyder has confirmed that his Justice League movie is meant to be the first in a trilogy of movies, but such a plan will never see the light of day. The director spoke to Total Film magazine (via GamesRadar) ahead of the release of the Justice League Snyder Cut and revealed his initial plans for the DC superhero team. Snyder explained that while he viewed Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, and Justice League as a three-story arc, he originally also planned to do two more Justice League installments. "Frankly, it was supposed to be the basis for two movies," Snyder said. "It's not like these movies are ever going to be photographed, I don't see that happening, and that stays true to that concept. It was meant to be." to be like Lord of the Rings and not just once. That's how I think of it. Snyder also revealed that he views Justice League as its own standalone film, despite the great job Patty Jenkins and James Wan have done with solo adventures for Wonder Woman and Aquaman respectively. "I love Patty and I think she did an amazing job," he continued. "And James did a great job — they made their own movies. But I just thought, 'I'm going to stick with the course that I thought was great.' There's a ton of things I do differently from them, but I'm just thinking of Justice League as its own right now. It sort of stands on its own."
What were Zack Snyder's Justice League plans?
This isn't the first time Snyder has opened up to a possible Justice League trilogy. As noted, the director had considered two more franchise entries while he was developing the first film. However, Snyder left the production in May 2017 following a family tragedy, which led to Joss Whedon taking management roles. Since the theatrical cut was not well received upon release, Warner Bros. and DC Comics moved away from an interconnected universe similar to the MCU. Instead, companies are building the DC Extended Universe, or DCEU, which allows filmmakers to tell various stories about different incarnations of popular DC superheroes. This allowed Warner and DC to reboot Batman and produce standalone Wonder Woman and Aquaman movies without worrying about continuity errors. This brings us back to Snyder's Justice League. With an MCU-esque take thrown out the window, the sequels to the director's initial vision won't happen now. However, that didn't stop Snyder from teasing what could have been for the trilogy of him. He revealed that the Snyder Cut will feature a massive superhero cameo in his prime, and recently told IGN that the movie will end on a huge cliffhanger. In a separate IGN article, Snyder also confirmed that Justice League 2 took place in the Knightmare world that Ben Affleck's Bruce Wayne had a premonition of in Batman v Superman. The comments came a week after DC mega-fan Kevin Smith announced a similar result (as reported by SyFy) on his Fatman Beyond podcast. Zack Snyder's Justice League arrives March 18 on HBO Max. Today's best HBO Max deals