DC Movie Directors Don’t Like Whedon’s Justice League, Says Patty Jenkins

Wonder Woman 1984 Patty Jenkins and his fellow DCEU directors didn’t like Joss Whedon’s Justice League. Jenkins is back with the franchise after the success of her 2017 collaboration with Gal Gadot, Wonder Woman.

Justice League‘s infamous troubled production has been discussed countless times since the film hit theaters in 2017. After launching the DCEU with Man of Steel and introducing the rest of the heroes in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, Zack Snyder was supposed to move the franchise forward with the ensemble project. But due to an amalgamation of things, he had to step away from it, with Whedon coming in to finish the film altogether. The end result, however, was significantly different from what the original plan was which was immediately apparent due to the directors’ different visual and storytelling styles. This gave birth to the Release the Snyder Cut movement which demanded Warner Bros. to roll out Snyder’s work on the movie.

The theatrical cut of Justice League was both a financial and critical bomb, but as it turns out, not just fans and critics didn’t like it, even other DCEU directors “tossed that out” as revealed by Jenkins who’s currently doing press for Wonder Woman 1984. She also added in the interview with CinemaBlend that while watching it, she didn’t recognize half of the characters in the film.

The Justice League? … No, I think that all of us DC directors tossed that out just as much as the fans did. But also, I felt that that version contradicted my first movie in many ways, and this current movie, which I was already in production on. So then, what are you going to do? I was like… you would have to play ball in both directions in order for that to work. The only thing I have done, and have always tried to do, is — I knew, when Zack was doing Justice League, where she sort of ends up. So I always tried… like, I didn’t change her suit, because I never want to… I don’t want to contradict his films, you know? But yet, I have to have my own films, and he’s been very supportive of that. And so, I think that that Justice League was kind of an outlier. They were trying to turn one thing into, kind of, another. And so then it becomes, ‘I don’t recognize half of these characters. I’m not sure what’s going on.’

Jenkins didn’t name-drop any other DCEU directors, but it’s safe to assume that one of those who didn’t approve of Whedon’s Justice League is James Wan who directed Aquaman. As she pointed out, the changes made in the ensemble film also meant altered arcs and take on the character and aside from Wonder Woman, Arthur Curry is the only other hero who’s ventured off on his own in a standalone film. Some of the planned set-up for Aquaman was left on the editing room floor including an appearance from Vulko which would’ve established the pair’s relationship before the 2018 film released. Fortunately for Wan, they were still able to come up with a smash hit with Aquaman earning more than $1 billion at the global box office.

It’s known that Snyder didn’t even watch the theatrical cut of Justice League which is understandable considering how different it was from his intended movie. Fortunately for him, he’s able to finally bring his full plan to fruition through a four-part HBO Max mini-series set to roll out sometime next year. It’s not going to be DCEU canon, but seeing it would be enough for fans who have been clamoring for the Snyder Cut since 2017.