The Real Reason Zack Snyder Keeps Making Director's Cuts Of His Movies

Odds are, when most casual moviegoers nowadays hear the words "director's cut," they think of "Zack Snyder's Justice League." The 2021 film arrived after years of fans campaigning online for its release, and it's generally regarded as a far superior alternative to the theatrical iteration of "Justice League" that hit theaters in 2017. The superhero flick isn't the only movie of his that Snyder has made an alternate cut of throughout his career, though. The filmmaker has actually made a habit out of releasing additional, usually longer versions of his films.

It's a creative cycle that Snyder has fully committed to now because he, by his own admission, believes it reflects his maximalist approach to filmmaking. Reflecting on how the trend began, the director recently told Entertainment Weekly, "I would make a movie for the studio and ... I'd kind of be done with the theatrical division who wanted the movie made, and I would just talk to [the DVD department] about like, 'Hey, if you guys give me a little extra money I can get you a weirdo version of the movie that you can sell again.'"

"When people started to get to know me and get to know that director's cut, there was always something in it that they weren't gonna get from the theatrical version," Snyder added. "Then that started to become anthemic of what I do, and you end up with 'Justice League' as the sort of quintessential, insane journey to a director's cut."

As his comments suggest, the "300" filmmaker doesn't intend to stop making alternate versions of his films anytime soon. He has, in fact, already announced one for his latest movie, "Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire," as well as its sequel.

Whilst speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Zack Snyder opened up about how the making of "Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire" ultimately differed from the years he spent completing his version of "Justice League," the latter of which was meant to set up a future for the DC Extended Universe that has been abandoned. "I don't know [if] that story's really ever gonna be told in its entirety," Snyder said. "It's a microcosm for what I was able to achieve with this film, but with everyone's eyes wide open and everyone really kind of into it."

It's still unclear when viewers will get to see Snyder's director's cut of "Rebel Moon," but fans will probably learn more about it closer to the release of its sequel, "Rebel Moon — Part Two: The Scargiver," which Netflix is set to unveil on April 19. It has already been confirmed that extended, R-rated versions of both films will eventually be released, and while details about the alternate cuts remain sparse, Snyder has teased what fans can expect from the first.

"The director's cut is close to an hour of extra content, so I think it's a legitimate extended universe version," Snyder told Netflix's Tudum. In the same interview, the filmmaker further revealed one key detail that separates the director's cuts of "Rebel Moon" from the extended versions of his past films. "The director's cuts have always been something I had to fight for in the past and nobody wanted it," Snyder noted. "With Netflix, we shot scenes just for the director's cut."

It seems, in other words, like Snyder has finally found a partner in Netflix that isn't interested in suppressing his maximalist tendencies.