Yesterday, Rolling Stone published a piece detailing supposed social media bot interactions trumping up the SnyderCut mentions. If you have no idea what we’re talking about, we’ll rewind a bit.
Director Zack Snyder was brought in by Warner Bros. Pictures to helm their “Justice League” film. Through a series of events- one of which being the untimely death of Snyder’s daughter by suicide- Snyder left the project. Joss Whedon was brought in to replace him and complete the film. The results were…mixed. Stories began to circulate about the “Snyder cut,” a version of the film which was vastly different than what audiences eventually saw. Allegations of racism and sexism at the hands of Whedon were finally taken seriously, and WB began to tease the idea of actually releasing the SnyderCut. In March of 2021, the Snyder Cut was released.
That’s the more concrete version.
What it felt like during the multi-year push was chaos. Complete and utter chaos. Mostly stemming from the near endless nameless accounts across Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and Instagram all proclaiming to be an army marching on behalf of Snyder’s maligned genius. Most of these were harmless- accounts with under 30 followers with no real history to speak of. But others became more…militant. It was like GamerGate and ComicsGate all over again, especially if you had the audacity to give Snyder, the film, or Whedon any kind of negative reviews. The ‘Snyder Army’ took it upon themselves to flood the internet with pro-Snyder Cut mentions, repeatedly seeing the term in top trends for months.
The Rolling Stone exposé surmised that up to 13% of that activity was performed by bots. That’s not the most damning or surprising thing in the piece, but it’s again bringing those mentions back to light.
Today, Snyder tweeted The 4-hour cut of the film is officially available as of today. A physical release (4K, Blu-ray, DVD) of the film is coming in the fall.
On Wednesday of this week, annual pop culture convention San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) kicks off. The event has long-been ground zero for fan-run campaigns for casting, projects, support, and contempt. Snyder himself had enjoyed many front-page antics there throughout the years. (Remember the time he drove the Batfleck Batmobile up and down the Hall H line in the middle of the night giving out t-shirts? Yeah.)
Warner Bros. Pictures has a fairly large studio panel on the books for Saturday, and there’s no telling what news we’ll be getting from that. Possibly some updates on “The Flash,” most certainly “Aquaman 2,” and Matt Reeves‘ various “The Batman” projects too.
