With only days left before the release of Zack Snyder's Justice League later this week, the anticipation factor has never been so high, and Snyder himself is beginning to make the rounds in the press cycle to promote the upcoming premiere of his long-awaited director's cut on HBO Max. In a new interview with the New York Times, Snyder delved deep into discussing the journey behind his original departure from Justice League and eventually returning to see his original vision for the film fully realized.

When it was confirmed that Snyder would be coming back to finish his assembly cut of Justice League, he was given a $70 million dollar budget by Warner Bros. to do so. The film's original cast, including Ben AffleckHenry CavillGal GadotJason MomoaRay Fisher and Ezra Miller, all reprised their roles, but there were some new additions this time around, including extra scenes that were filmed with Jared Leto in the role of the Joker.

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Image via Zack Snyder

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The result is a four-hour project with six chapter titles that will reportedly end on a cliffhanger, which Snyder confirmed with the Times satisfies his version of the movie. But what would Snyder's potential Justice League 2 actually look like? The director teased his plan for developing future sequels and how that would play out on-screen.

It’s the fall of Earth, when Superman succumbs to anti-life. And then sending Flash back in time to change one element so that doesn’t happen. And then the big battle where we beat him. When [the villain] Darkseid comes to Earth, in the movie that you’ll never see, the armies of Earth all unite again, as they did before. This time there would be aircraft carriers and Special Forces guys, all the armies of the world would come together, as well as [Aquaman’s fellow] Atlanteans rising out of the ocean and the Themyscirans [Wonder Woman’s compatriots] coming off their island. That was our big finale. But it’s a long drum roll and guitar solo to get there.

In a separate interview with EW, Snyder elaborated a bit (and spoilers for The Snyder Cut follow below) on how everything would have culminated with Justice League 3:

It was always our plan that the next movies would be all about the fall of earth and how to fix that. The idea for the next movie was, Darkseid comes to earth, kills the pregnant Lois, that sends Superman into a spiral of grief that Darkseid takes advantage of, uses the Anti-Life Equation to bring him on to Darkseid's side, and that's really what makes the earth fall. Then, in the post-apocalyptic world, Flash has to run back in time, and Batman sacrifices himself so Lois doesn't die, and then Superman is able to fight Darkseid. That's kind of the pieces that were in play in there. The five-movie arc would end with the big battle for earth. The "ask" by the fans was, "Do your thing, we want Zack Snyder's version" and that meant I would do the best I can to say, "Well, this is what I would do."

For the moment, however, there aren't any immediate plans for Snyder to make a sequel, so we'll have to entertain the thought of what could have been. Provided there are no more accidental leaksZack Snyder's Justice League is scheduled for a March 18 release on HBO Max.

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