Zack Snyder Shares Image of Darkseid For His HBO Max Justice League Cut
With the launch of HBO Max today, it’s fair to say the new streaming service has entered a very crowded market with some seriously strong momentum. That’s due not only to the huge trove of films, series, and more HBO Max will be offering, but because of what’s coming next year. Yup, we’re talking about the Justice League Snyder Cut, that years-in-the-tweeting dream of seeing director Zack Snyder’s fully-realized vision for the film he had to leave in the middle of production. Snyder and HBO Max announced that release of his special, possibly four hour Justice League cut last week (it’ll premiere in 2021), and now, the director has revealed a glimpse at his new-ish film’s big bad, Darkseid.
Now, for those of you who aren’t fully versed in the specifics of the entire Justice League #ReleaseTheSnyderCut intrigue, here’s a brief recap. The hashtag began trending globally during Justice League‘s 2-year anniversary (the film premiered on November 17, 2017). The film that was released into theaters was co-directed by Snyder and Joss Whedon, who had to step in when Snyder left to attend to family issues. Since that hashtag became a thing, and countless articles and additional tweets kept bringing up the mysterious, mythical Synder Cut, Warner Media eventually heeded the call. Working with Snyder and his wife and producer Deborah Snyder, Warner Media agreed to fund Snyder’s full vision for the film. That includes assembling the cast for ADR (additional dialogue), as well as the original postproduction crew for all of the VFX, score, and editing work that will be necessary. “ReleaseTheSnyderCut first became a passionate rallying social media cry among fans in 2017 and has not let up,” Warner Media said in a press release. “From countless press articles and hundreds of thousands of social media mentions, it became a powerful global movement among cinephiles and comic book fans.”
And now that movement has led us to Darkseid, who is no doubt a big part of Snyder’s vision. Although he was never seen in Joss Whedon’s theatrical cut—the main villain in that version was Steppenwolf, voiced by Ciarán Hinds—it has long been rumored that Darkseid, voiced by Ray Porter, was Snyder’s main bad guy. And now he’s made that official:
He’s coming… to HBO Max pic.twitter.com/tthWwAqzWp
— Zack Snyder (@ZackSnyder) May 27, 2020
It’ll be a while until we see what kind of villain Darkseid is, and how he differs from Steppenwolf, but at least we now know it’s all happening. As we’ve said before, never underestimate the power of a globally trending hashtag.
Featured image: The Snyder Cut is real. Zack Snyder’s Justice League is coming to HBO Max. Courtesy Warner Bros./HBO
