Where To Start With The New ‘Sell Zack Snyder’s Justice League To Netflix’ Movement?

When the history books of the internet are written, there should be an entire chapter devoted to the fanbase of Zack Snyder’s Justice League and the “Snyderverse.” It’s a group that is more passionate about the superhero universe than fans of any other piece of media I’ve ever seen, so much so they frequently come off as…quite delusional.

I understand why they believe in themselves. It’s true that after years of online campaigning, they did in fact get Warner Bros. to release the Snyder Cut of the Justice League (even if that was mainly just an obvious ploy to get HBO Max subs). But that was only just the start, and the campaign after that was to get Snyder to return to finish out his original Justice League storyline, along with fleshing out side projects like a Ben Affleck Batman movie or an Ayer cut of the original Suicide Squad.

But times have changed. DC now has a firm, non-Snyder-based direction that is actually, actively dismantling most of the remaining Snyder-started DCEU. That would be the hiring of James Gunn and Peter Safran, who announced that Snyder-hired Henry Cavill would not return as Superman, and obviously no one is going to bring back Snyder himself to finish out Justice League’s arc in this new era. That has led to some campaigns where hashtags like #FireJamesGunn trends daily.

Some in the Snyder movement are trying to do something more positive, however, rather than focusing on getting James Gunn fired. Positive but…one of the craziest things I’ve probably heard this movement propose, and that’s saying something.

The current pitch is that WB Discovery can keep James Gunn and this new DC universe he’s building but they should sell the rights to Zack Snyder’s Snyderverse…to Netflix.

The idea seems to be that:

• Zack Snyder currently has a lucrative deal with Netflix, which is producing original films from him like Army of the Dead and the upcoming Rebel Moon.
• Netflix bought one of the VFX studios that worked on Justice League previously.
• Netflix lacks its own Marvel/DC superhero franchise and the Snyderverse would fill that gap.

And yet it is hard to see this as anything other than fan fiction as the logistics of this as a serious proposal are just…hard to fathom.

On the Warner Bros side: Why would they agree to spinning out what would essentially be a competing DC universe to their own, freshly rebooted DC universe? What amount of money could possibly make that worthwhile to them? And it wouldn’t just be a rival universe, it would be something airing on their biggest competitor’s platform. We’re talking billions of dollars in terms of making this deal worthwhile on their end, and even then, it still may not be worth it because of the convoluted mess it would produce for DC.

On the Netflix side: Why would Netflix pay billions of dollars to access the Snyderverse, and then on top of that, presumably have to fund some of the most massively expensive types of movies in existence, superhero crossover films, like the two Justice League sequels fans want? And they’d be doing it without any promise of box office returns because Netflix does not make movies that do lengthy theatrical runs. So even if you want to make the argument that the Snyderverse was a financial windfall for WB (debatable), that hinged entirely on those movies being in theaters. And as vocal as they may be, there are not enough Snyderverse die-hard fans on earth that would drive enough new subscribers to Netflix to make this a worthwhile content purchase.

While I agree that this is better than a #FireJamesGunn movement, it is also one of the most ludicrous media proposals I’ve ever seen. But expect to see it trending often, culminating in what appears to be a big push in February, according to the instructions I’m seeing online. Good luck, you’ll need it.

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