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When “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” premieres on HBO Max this Thursday, it will mark the culmination of years of Snyder fan-base campaigns, typified by the ubiquitous #ReleasetheSnyderCut hashtag. In November 2019, several “Justice League” stars, including Ben Affleck and Gal Gadot, joined Snyder in tweeting the hashtag, a critical seal of approval for the campaign that helped convince the Warner Bros. boss. , Toby Emmerich, to allow Snyder to complete his original vision for the film.
However, those same stars have been conspicuously absent from the campaign to promote the film’s actual release. To be sure, Affleck, Gadot, Jason Momoa, and Ray Fisher have posted trailers and posters of the Snyder cut on their respective Twitter and Instagram accounts, and Henry Cavill joined Snyder in May for the official announcement that the Snyder cut actually It was happening. . Affleck, Gadot, Cavill, Fisher, and Ezra Miller also promoted Snyder’s cut during the DC Fandome fan event in August.
But in the critical weeks leading up to the premiere of “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” on HBO Max, none of these actors have engaged in the standard methods of promoting a movie of this size: travel interviews, talk show appearances. , press conferences, presenters. in award ceremonies. Instead, Snyder and his wife and production partner Deborah Snyder have taken on the burden of promoting the new “Justice League” on their own.
In a larger interview with Variety On the new “Justice League,” the Snyders say they’ve been behind at least part of the promotion the actors have done for the film.
“We provided things to the cast,” says Deborah Snyder.
“I’d just say, ‘Jason [Momoa], here’s the new trailer, ‘”says Zack Snyder. “He would say, ‘Thank you, bro!’ It wasn’t like a truly coordinated effort. “
Deborah Snyder adds that HBO Max also helped distribute social media resources for the film, something that sources familiar with plans for “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” have echoed. But privately, these sources also sound a similar refrain: This movie is really Snyder’s baby, and he’s the one who deserves to be in front of it. Beyond the social media posts, these sources say, HBO Max hasn’t been running a larger campaign with the cast. Presumably, it would also cost more money to get the stars out of the movie’s A-list for a new round of interviews.
Any contractual obligations to promote “Justice League” were likely met in the 2017 theatrical release. But Snyder has said that HBO Max spent approximately $ 70 million to complete the film, and from the start, Snyder’s cut was Billed as a featured title for the still fledgling streaming service, which to date has not come close to the subscriber base. from its main competitors, Netflix and Disney Plus. Why wouldn’t Warner Media and HBO Max actively recruit their biggest stars to help maximize attention for the film and hopefully drive audiences to subscribe to the service?
One factor affecting the PR rollout for Snyder’s cut, obviously, is the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of a swanky red carpet premiere, for example, Snyder teams up with filmmaker Kevin Smith for an online “virtual premiere” event on Wednesday night. But Variety learned that HBO Max only reached out to at least some of the “Justice League” actors on Monday to ask if they could send a quick video to say hi to fans. It’s unclear at press time if any of the actors were able to please.
Several of the main cast members of the “Justice League” are also busy on other projects. Affleck is filming “The Tender Bar” with director (and former Batman) George Clooney; Affleck is also reportedly set to reprise his portrayal of Batman in “The Flash” with Miller and director Andy Muschietti. Meanwhile, Miller is finishing work on the third “Fantastic Beasts” movie. And Gadot, who recently wrapped up a relentless campaign for HBO Max’s release of “Wonder Woman 1984,” has been promoting the National Geographic documentary series “Impact,” of which she is an executive producer.
On the other hand, if the pandemic has facilitated anything, it is promotional interviews. It’s much easier for A-list talents to hop on Zoom for a few minutes from their home (or hotel or trailer) than it is to set aside days or weeks of their schedules for a traditional press tour.
The only main cast member of “Justice League” who has been aggressively promoting “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” in recent weeks is Fisher, who regularly posts on Twitter and Instagram about the film, and repeatedly involved to the fan base to get more excitement. Fisher, however, has also been embroiled in a lengthy public feud with WarnerMedia over how the company handled its misconduct allegations in the “Justice League” set in 2017, after Snyder left the project due to a tragedy. family. Fisher has accused Joss Whedon, who was hired to finish the film, of engaging in “rude, abusive, unprofessional and completely unacceptable behavior,” according to a viral tweet he sent in July.
Gadot and Momoa have publicly endorsed Fisher, and Gadot even answered questions about Fisher’s allegations while promoting “WW84.”
But in recent weeks, WarnerMedia executives have made it clear that they want to get out of the Fisher dispute: The company concluded its investigation in December and announced that unspecified “corrective action” had been taken. Any interview the cast does about the Snyder cut, however, would inevitably add more oxygen to Fisher’s story; Snyder himself was asked about Fisher’s allegations in recent interviews. (Miller, meanwhile, has also not publicly addressed a video that emerged last April in which he appears to strangle a woman outside a bar in Iceland.)
Another factor may simply be the unique nature of the Snyder cut itself. More than any studio film of its size, the film was created expressly to satisfy the desire of a core fanbase, which effectively brought the project to fruition through a sustained campaign on social media. So fans are where the Snyders say they have kept their attention promoting the film, whether they are movie stars or not.
“It was very organic for me to be with the fans and with the movement that made it possible,” says Zack Snyder. “At some point there was a discussion about whether my fans had the breadth and scope to generate enough enthusiasm. I thought, well, these are the guys that convinced Warner Bros. to do the crazy thing they just did. “
“We’ve marketed a lot of these movies and we’ve never done it like this before,” adds Deborah Snyder. “But I think we just want us to be faithful to the foundations of everything, and for the campaign to be live on social media.”
Maintaining that connection with fans became paramount, especially after some fans also started using the campaign to raise funds for suicide prevention in honor of Zack Snyder’s daughter Autumn, whose death by suicide led to his decision to leave “Justice League” and return to complete. his vision.
“The fans and the charities were things that, without them, we were nothing to us,” says Deborah Snyder. “It was important for us to be respectful to the fans, and not suddenly say, ‘Okay, thanks for getting us to this point, now we are going to do something else and you are not going to be involved.'”
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