Zack Snyder Shooting New Director’s Cut Of Infamous Flop?
Zack Snyder wants to revisit one of his least successful films, Sucker Punch, and give it his trademark director’s cut treatment. At this point in the 300 director’s career, revised cuts of his theatrical films are practically as inevitable as gratuitous slow motion and desaturated color palettes. For evidence of this, look no further than the fact that his new film Rebel Moon, which has yet to be released, is already scheduled to see its director’s cut released later on Netflix.
Director’s cuts like the one Zack Snyder wants to make of Sucker Punch have existed for a long time, with filmmakers who carry enough clout releasing versions of their films closer to their original vision than the ones put out by studios. Snyder, however, has made these once-rare occurrences an almost de facto element of his cinematic output. Notoriously, the one-time king of the DC movie universe released a lukewarm four-hour cut of his film Justice League, complete with newly shot footage.
Whether his Sucker Punch edit would be four hours long or not is unknown, but Zack Snyder would like to bring members of the cast back to shoot more footage for it. This in itself seems a bit of a stretch since the original film was released a dozen years ago in 2011. It also seems unusual, if not unlikely, since the movie has already had an extended cut, which was released to home video later that same year.
But Zack Snyder has another version of Sucker Punch in mind, one he says would be even more controversial than the original and rated R. The original was controversial because, despite its apparently feminist message, it still portrayed its protagonist women as both eye candy and victims of a patriarchal system. That thematic bait and switch might have been intended by Snyder, who has commented in other interviews that he intended the film to be something of an “f— you” to some viewers.
Zack Snyder says that Sucker Punch was the first time he felt he was having his film drastically restructured by a studio for commercial appeal, something that obviously still sticks in his craw more than a decade later. He also says the extended version still did not live up to what he wanted the finished film to be and claims to be discussing options with Warner Bros. for filling out a third cut of the movie. For their part, the studio has not made any comment regarding the state of this proposed new cut or whether it is even going to happen at all.
If Zack Snyder gets to make his director’s cut of Sucker Punch, it will, on the one hand, be surprising as critics widely derided the film. On the other hand, it would also seem true to form for Warner Brothers, who, to this point, have seemed to give Snyder pretty much everything he wants, no matter how widely general audiences have hated his long-on-style, short-on-substance movies. Even as the studio hands the reins of DC films over to James Gunn for the new DCU, the Sucker Punch situation may demonstrate just how beholden they are to Snyder, whose sucker punches they have heretofore seemed happy to take.
Source: Inverse
