‘Justice League’ Cinematographer Says Theatrical Cut Threw Out 90% of Zack Snyder’s Footage

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Zack Snyder went viral this week after posting a photo of film containers that seemingly contain the much-discussed “Justice League” Snyder cut. Snyder’s post was an attempt to end the debate over whether or not the Snyder cut exists. The director exited “Justice League” after a family tragedy and Joss Whedon was hired by Warner Bros. to oversee reshoots and postproduction. Whedon was also tasked with lightening up the film’s tone. During a recent Q&A (via ScreenRant), the original “Justice League” cinematographer Fabian Wagner weighed in on the recent Snyder cut buzz by saying, “If there is a Snyder cut, I hope it’s better than the one that is out now.”

Wagner has long been critical of Whedon’s “Justice League.” In an interview over the summer, Wagner said he cried all the way through watching Whedon’s drastically different version of the film than Snyder’s. The cinematographer said at the time that watching Whedon’s “Justice League” was so hard he couldn’t figure out how much of the original film was changed in reshoots. “A lot was changed,” he said. “It looked very different.” Now Wagner reasons that Whedon and Warner Bros. threw out 90 percent of what he shot with Snyder. Wagner was not involved in any of the “Justice League” reshoots.

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“I did principal photography for Zack. We finished shooting and he started editing,” Wagner said. “We did the color grading for the trailers. So the first three trailers were all things we shot. Then they started reshoots. I wasn’t there. It was a completely different team. They reshot 55 days, I think. The movie that was in cinemas was 10 percent of what we shot. Everything else is a reshoot.”

Snyder’s photo of the “Justice League” film canisters includes a label that reveals a 214 minute runtime. That length makes “Justice League” as long as “The Irishman” at three and a half hours (though it could be so long because it’s possibly just an assembly cut). Although Snyder cut buzz continues to soar, there are no concrete plans as of now to release this version. IndieWire has reached out to Warner Bros. for further comment.

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