“Justice League” screenwriter Chris Terrio has called the theatrical version of the superhero movie an “act of vandalism.”
“The 2017 theatrical cut was an act of vandalism,” Terrio told Vanity Fair’s Anthony Breznican in a scathing interview published Thursday. “Zack [Snyder] may be too much of a gentleman to say that, but I’m not.”
Terrio added that after seeing the theatrical version, “I immediately called my lawyer and said, ‘I want to take my name off the film.’ [The lawyer] then called Warner Bros. and told them that I wanted to do that.”
Terrio would eventually stand down on removing his name from the movie. He explained, “It would be an international scandal and news story. So I shut up and I said nothing publicly. I’ve never said anything about ‘Justice League’ since then, but the movie doesn’t represent my work.”
“Justice League” underwent a slew of changes during its original production, most notably when Snyder abruptly exited the movie during post-production, just months ahead of its November 2017 release date. “Avengers” director Joss Whedon was subsequently hired to finish the film for Snyder, but he ended up overseeing extensive reshoots intended to drastically change the story.
The end result was a film that was released on time, but both underperformed at the box office and received a critical drubbing, particularly for its half-baked special effects — for instance, how obvious it was that Henry Cavill shot a bunch of scenes as Superman with the mustache that he grew for another movie. Shortly after the film’s release, disappointed fans organized a campaign around the hashtag #ReleaseTheSnyderCut, intended to convince Warner Bros. to greenlight a release closer to whatever it was Snyder intended.
That effort paid off last May when Warner Bros. announced that Snyder would return to oversee a new cut of the film, which finally premiered in March on HBO Max. Snyder had also said his version of the 2017 film would contain nothing from Whedon’s reshoots.