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Will ‘Justice League’ Be The Perfect Combination of Snyder’s and Whedon’s Styles?

There’s just over a month left until DC’s own superhero team-up flick, Justice League hits theaters; and it has not been an easy road for the studio. After some pretty dark predecessors, fans were expecting yet another ‘way too dark’ take on DC’s usual beacons of hope. Then Wonder Woman happened and everything seemed to change. Then we later got news that Zack Snyder would be departing the Justice League project following the tragic loss of his daughter. So considering the success of Wonder Woman (and its lighter more empowering tone) and Joss Whedon taking over for Snyder, would we now be getting a film much less dark than Batman V Superman and Man of Steel?

Well the simple answer is “yes”; but if you want to know where the lighter tone came from…. then things get a bit more complicated. In a recent interview with Empire Magazine Gal Gadot began by saying that:

“Justice League is not a dark or heavy movie…. It doesn’t have the weight that Batman v Superman had.”

Now the full interview/ article is released tomorrow, but according to Comicbook.com Gal Gadot went on to say that Whedon’s reshoots caused no change in tone to Snyder’s original vision. Though without the original article, I cannot confirm this as it does contradict things said in previous interviews. For example, in August, actor Joe Morton (who plays Cyborg’s father) told IGN that the reshoots were indeed to lighten the tone of the film – at the very least, the tone of Cyborg’s story.

“There were some adjustments that they made in terms of the tone of that character [Cyborg]. I think what I heard was that there was a need from the studio to lighten up the film in a way, that the film felt too dark. I don’t know what that meant in terms of how it actually got translated in terms of the reshoots but that’s what I heard.”

So one says the reshoots didn’t change the tone and another says the reshoots did change the tone… can we get a tie breaker? Well thankfully Ben Affleck also spoke with Empire magazine and (again according to Comicbook.com) reportedly said:

“Joss came in and walked a very fine line between Zack’s sensibility, tone, and direction… We found a really fun and inspiring synthesis of their two forms of storytelling. I was so glad everyone showed up to work for Zack.”

So who’s right? In the end, I think they all are; but Affleck expressed it the best. Justice League is and will be Snyder’s work. He envisioned this as the moment the night begins to end and the heroes rise up in hope to create something better. After all, we know there was humor in this movie before all the reshoot talk began since we saw it in the San Diego Comic Con teaser. Was it still using a dark color pallet like Batman V Superman? Yes, but there was genuine humor in it. So when Whedon came in, he took Snyder’s work and helped connect some final puzzle pieces and bring out that hopeful tone a bit more while still being incredibly respectful to all the work Snyder had done previously.

In the end, I suppose we’ll know for sure when Justice League hits theaters November 17th, 2017.