Two years after Justice League premiered, actor Joe Manganiello joined fellow DC Universe stars like Ben Affleck and Gal Gadot in posting the hashtag #ReleaseTheSnyderCut to social media. Fans saw the move as a joint nudge to Warner Bros. to release the heavily rumored Zack Snyder version of the 2017 critical flop. Manganiello, who played Deathstroke during an end-credits scene in the film, recently told EW that he has not seen the rumored cut of the film. His post on the anniversary was more a memorial to the Deathstroke character that could have been.
Manganiello’s post featured 10 photos of his Deathstroke/Mr. Wilson character while shooting in Monaco for Justice League, the actor tells EW. Ray Fisher (Cyborg) and Christina Wren (Major Carrie Farris) also posted on social media for the anniversary.
“I don’t know who started that,” Manganiello says of the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut hashtag that was trending on Twitter on Nov. 17. “Because of the cancellation of Batman and the various other projects that my character was going to be in, I never got to release them.”
Snyder originally dropped out as director of the Justice League during production for personal reasons. Director Joss Whedon (who directed the MCU darling Avengers: Age of Ultron) was brought on to finish the project. The movie debuted and immediately alienated DC fans (at least 180,000 of them) who wanted more from the all-star cast.
The lackluster fan feedback and less-than-favorable box office returns led to a considerable shake-up at Warner Bros., according to Variety. Justice League producer Jon Berg, who worked heavily on the project, exited the company. DC and Warner Bros. also began rethinking having each DC movie feed into a shared universe. A Deathstroke stand-alone film starring Manganiello, that even last year the actor said was “still in the works,” may have been a casualty of those changes.
“I honestly wanted to stop talking about it. I don’t really like talking about things that didn’t happen,” Manganiello said of the Snyder Cut. “I have a ton of photos from the set photographer that were never going to be released that were sitting on my computer. One day I thought, if I don’t put them out now they’re never going to come out. I might as well get them out to the public.”
At a fundraiser event in March 2019, Snyder confirmed a director’s cut exists in a fan video posted to social media, which brewed the pot just enough for hopeful fans to start the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut movement. There’s hope that it may one day come out, but it’s not likely to be any time soon.
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