'Zack Snyder's Justice League' Black And White Edition Is Officially Coming To HBO Max
After four long years, Zack Snyder Justice League has finally made its way to the screen. This is it: all four hours of Snyder's pure, unadulterated vision in a 4:3 aspect ratio. The definitive version, so to speak. Well, not exactly. Snyder has spoken before about how his "ideal version" of the movie is in black and white. This version is something that the filmmaker has frequently alluded to, releasing character posters for Justice League in black-and-white, and dropping a black-and-white trailer. Now, HBO Max will release that "definitive" version of the Zack Snyder's Justice League.
Snyder took to Twitter to confirm that a black and white cut of Zack Snyder's Justice League is coming to HBO Max. The project features a new subtitle, Justice is Gray, and as no set release date apart from a "coming soon." But the announcement does feature a clip from the black-and-white edition featuring Ben Affleck's Batman and Jeremy Irons' Alfred.
Snyder has said that his "ideal version of the movie is the black and white IMAX version" of the film. "That, to me, is the most fan-centric, most pure, most Justice League experience," the filmmaker continued. "Because that's how I lived with the movie for two years, in black and white...when I do the live-stream of the trailer, Steph and I colored a black and white version of the trailer. So the first version that I'm going to put out, and probably what I'm going to talk about on Tuesday, will be the black and white version of the trailer."
While it doesn't appear that he'll be getting that IMAX release soon, at least HBO Max is continuing to do Snyder favors by releasing this black and white cut alongside the currently-streaming cut.
Black and white recuts of successful blockbusters has become something of a trend recently, with George Miller releasing a black and white cut of Mad Max: Fury Road titled Mad Max: Blood and Chrome, while James Mangold dropped a a black and white version of his 2017 comic book film titled Logan: Noir. The hope is that the visuals of these films are so striking that they'll play well even with all the colors sapped out of them. Zack Snyder's Justice League is already pretty monochromatic as it is, but as we've seen with the making of David Fincher's Mank, there's a difference between slapping a greyscale filter over a color film and actually shooting for black and white. But whatever your thoughts on black-and-white recuts, this new edition of Zack Snyder's Justice League will give a chance for fans to watch all four hours all over again.
Zack Snyder's Justice League is streaming now on HBO Max.