More Sordid Details About How Joss Whedon Came to Replace Zack Snyder on ‘Justice League’

Right around this time last year, Warner Brothers and DC announced that Zack Snyder would not be finishing his directorial work on Justice League due to a serious family emergency, and Joss Whedon would come in and help finish the film. While this was mostly true, as time has gone on, we've discovered that this wasn't quite the full story.

As we've reported in the past, WB and DC had apparently fired Snyder because his film was an absolute mess which continued down the convoluted and dark path his previous DC films had taken. Now there are new reports that this was not only true, but the film was in much worse shape than anyone let on at the time.

Vulture senior editor Kyle Buchanan posted two tweets last night that give some indication of the turmoil happening behind the scenes, and how Whedon was among several candidates asked to fix the film...

I remember hearing that Geoff Johns rewrote so much of JUSTICE LEAGUE when Zack Snyder was still directing that Chris Terrio would complain, "Maybe *try* using some of my pages?" https://t.co/NOwj5sgIUd

— Kyle Buchanan (@kylebuchanan) June 11, 2018

WB was allegedly so unsatisfied with how the Johns/Snyder version was shaping up that they convened a footage summit for *other* writers including Joss Whedon, Allan Heinberg, Seth Grahame-Smith, and Andrea Berloff to offer feedback. Then they hired Whedon.

— Kyle Buchanan (@kylebuchanan) June 11, 2018

For my money, it's almost more officious for them to use Snyder's daughter's death as a cover for the real reason they wanted Snyder out. Sure, they may have looked like callous assholes who didn't care about the Snyder's personal life, but at least they would've been up front about it. Now they just retrospectively look like assholes who didn't care about Snyder's personal life.

When you think about it, it's almost a shame Wonder Woman did so well, because she's the only thing preventing the DCEU from being shut down and officially rebooted. They've got no choice but to ride this horse until they get to their destination or until it dies underneath them and they're forced to run to the finish line like Jeff Bridges in True Grit.