Justice League is a big movie for Warner Bros. The studio has tried to kind of reverse-engineer its own interconnected universe at an accelerated pace, jumping straight into Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice after Man of Steel—instead of a Superman sequel, they made a movie that featured Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman all together. This summer’s Wonder Woman was an unabashed success both critically and commercially, and so now the studio’s big team-up movie hopes to keep that goodwill alive after poor critical response to Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad.
But Justice League has been plagued by rumors of troubles ever since it began shooting. Indeed, filming began only a month after Batman v Superman hit theaters, and reports suggested that Warner Bros. was worrying that the dark and gritty tone of BvS may not be the best way forward for the DC Extended Universe—despite the fact that Justice League started filming under the assumption everyone would love BvS. Reshoots were always planned, but director Zack Snyder was forced to exit the film earlier this year to tend to unfortunate family matters, at which point Joss Whedon came on to bring Justice League across the finish line.
Whedon, who was already involved in helping script some of the reshoots, was now tasked with directing these reshoots, which were reportedly quite significant. And now in speaking with EW, Batman himself Ben Affleck has spoken up about the experience of making a movie that has two different directors:
“It’s a little bit unorthodox. Zack had a family tragedy, and stepped off, which was horrible. For the movie, the best person we could’ve possibly found was Joss. We got really lucky that he stepped in.” Affleck, who helmed the Best Picture-winning Argo, describes the resulting film as “an interesting product of two directors, both with kind of unique visions, both with really strong takes. I’ve never had that experience before making a movie. I have to say, I really love working with Zack, and I really love the stuff we’ve done with Joss.”
As for the extent of the reshoots, Affleck downplayed their significance by pointing out that Argo and Gone Baby Gone both had days of reshoots, but the scale of this Justice League additional photography—not to mention Affleck’s aforementioned comments—seems to suggest there’s more than just nipping and tucking going on.
Regardless, Affleck seems pleased with how the film and the DCEU as a whole are turning out while also seemingly admitting that BvS fell short of his own expectations:
“This is a really nice time to work in DC. They’re hitting their stride. They’re getting it right. It’s starting to feel like it’s really working.”
That “it’s starting to” line would suggest Affleck maybe wasn’t thrilled with Batman v Superman and/or Suicide Squad, but no one can deny that Wonder Woman was a huge boon for the DCEU and looks to be showing the way forward. Given this tonal shift and the dual directors, watching Justice League should be a fascinating experience come the film’s November 17th release.
