Zack Snyder credited as sole director on Justice League

It’s official – Zack Snyder will be the only name listed as director on Warner Bros’ upcoming DC movie ‘Justice League.’

As We Got This Covered report, the superhero team up movie starring Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Henry Cavill, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa and Ray Fisher is being officially classed by the studio as a Zack Snyder film – despite significant contributions from Joss Whedon.

Snyder – the most prolific director of the DC Extended Universe thus far, having also called the shots on ‘Man of Steel’ and ‘Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice’ – stepped back from ‘Justice League,’ along with his wife and producer Deborah Snyder, following the suicide of his daughter (from a previous marriage) earlier this year.

In his absence, ‘Avengers’ writer-director Whedon was enlisted to oversee reshoots and post-production – and some reports have suggested that the film Whedon is putting the finishing touches on may be quite far removed from what Snyder originally envisaged.

However, it seems Whedon’s sole credit on ‘Justice League’ will be as a co-writer.

It is also noted that, unsurprisingly, ‘Justice League’ has been rated PG-13 by US ratings board the MPAA; the film has yet to be classified by Britain’s BBFC, but a 12A seems inevitable.

Even prior to the Synders’ family tragedy, ‘Justice League’ is said to have had its troubles behind the scenes. The film began production almost immediately after ‘Batman V Superman’ opened in cinemas in 2016, and after the widespread criticism of that film’s overly grim tone took the director and studio by surprise, this prompted immediate rethinks on how ‘Justice League’ should be approached.

Subsequently, DC’s approach to their shared universe has also been re-evaluated, and it is thought that the Whedon-directed revisions to ‘Justice League’ serve not only to lighten the tone, but also to keep the focus on telling a self-contained story, as opposed to setting up further DCEU offshoots.

It also looks likely that ‘Justice League’ will be Snyder’s final DC movie, at least for the foreseeable future. The director plans to move on to a long-developing passion project, ‘The Last Photograph.’

Whedon, however, is just getting started with DC, and is currently developing a ‘Batgirl’ movie which he is poised to write and direct.

‘Justice League’ opens in UK cinemas on 17 November.

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