How Much Unseen Footage Is Really In Zack Snyder's Justice League Cut?

Fans may have to wait until a yet-announced date in 2021 to see Zack Snyder's Justice League on HBO Max, but the filmmaker himself recently did everyone a solid and answered a truly pressing question: Just how much fresh footage will be included in the new version of Justice League?

After revealing a new(ish) trailer for the Snyder Cut of Justice League, which featured a few new scenes not included in the original trailer that debuted back in August 2020, Snyder hopped on his social media platform of choice, Vero, to lead an in-depth breakdown of the footage. During the livestream, the director revealed that there's roughly two and a half hours of unseen footage bundled into his version of Justice League, which he sadly never got to realize until now. 

As fans know, Snyder stepped down as the director of 2017's Justice League following the untimely death of his daughter; he handed the reins to Joss Whedon, who steered the film in his own, very different direction. The end result was a critical disappointment and a financial under-performer (particularly due to the tentpole-sized budget it sported), and ever since, ardent Snyder supporters have been hoping to one day see what the filmmaker had intended Justice League to be.

Clearly, Snyder is sitting on a ton of footage that was shot but never used by Whedon when he pulled Justice League together and put it out into theaters. That the upcoming film will have two and a half hours of unseen sequences actually isn't too surprising when you consider how massive Zack Snyder's Justice League will be compared to the theatrical version of the film. Where the 2017 flick about DC's premier superhero squad had a runtime of two hours, the Snyder Cut will be four hours long — presented on HBO Max in four one-hour-long parts before being reassembled into a single, extra-lengthy film.

Snyder's remark that two and a half hours of unseen footage awaits fans in his version of Justice League tracks with past comments he gave to The Hollywood Reporter. He told the outlet in May 2020 that, from what he's heard through the grapevine about the theatrical version of Justice League (he's still never seen it), viewers saw only 25 percent of what he did. Of a two-hour film, that amounts to just 30 minutes. Add that to the 180 minutes of unseen footage, and you've got three hours of Snyder Cut goodness. That leaves an hour of movie unaccounted for, based on the four-hour runtime it's slated to reach, and apparently, only four minutes of those four hours is footage captured during reshoots (via CBR). Clever editing, more footage from the Whedon cut, or even more than two and a half hours of unseen footage could bump the whole thing up to four hours.

Over the past few months, there has been quite a lot of chatter about big elements that will be exclusive to Zack Snyder's Justice League – like Darkseid (Ray Porter) actually serving as a villain, Jared Leto's Joker joining the action at some point, characters like Cyborg (Ray Fisher) more significant storylines, and more – but it's impossible to say for certain how everything will come together and what the final cut will feel like. All we know at present is that the Snyder Cut of Justice League will be something truly special. According to the man himself, "It will be an entirely new thing, and, especially talking to those who have seen the released movie, a new experience apart from that movie" (via THR).

Zack Snyder's Justice League will hit HBO Max sometime in 2021.