Zack Snyder tells Joe and Anthony Russo that he was asked to make the script for Justice League funnier by the studio.
Zack Snyder started the DCEU with The Man of Steel ten years ago, but the cracks started to show with the next film, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Some critics said the film was too dark and humorless, which prompted Warner Bros. Justice League.
While speaking with Joe and Anthony Russo on their Pizza Film School podcast, Zack Snyder confirmed that the studio wanted him to lighten the tone of the Justice League as a direct result of the reception Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice received “The script for Justice League came out of that,” Snyder said. “I’ll be honest, the script, what happened with ‘Justice League,’ because it was really … the original script was much darker and weirder, and then ‘Batman Vs. Superman’ came out, and the studio was like, ‘It’s not funny enough, people want funnier movies, they want funny stuff in it.’“
Zack Snyder said they made a funnier pass of it Justice League to annoy the studio, but he admitted that jokes are not really his wheelhouse. “We went back and did … lighten the whole movie. And I would say that my cut of ‘Justice League’ is kind of in between,” he said. “We had made the changes for the studio and I’ll be honest, Chris [Terrio] and I’m not the funniest people in the world, we’re not like terrible joke writers…I’m just 100% honest about that [Laughs].” Snyder said that much of the humor was attributed to Ezra Miller. “We had Ezra and he’s really funny, that was kind of a role, being the Flash, and being young, and being a little bit irreverent and afraid of Batman and Superman,” Snyder said. “And he did a great job, and that part was great.“
As we know, Zack Snyder ended up retiring Justice League and the studio brought in Joss Whedon to complete the film. The end result wasn’t… great, but there it was definitely lighter than the previous films, so I guess the studio got what it wanted, for better or worse. Snyder would eventually finish his vision of the film for HBO Max, which received a better response from fans.
