On the 178th episode of the Batman-On-Film.com Podcast, host Garret Grev and I were honored to have 20-year film journalist Sean O’Connell on the show. Sean is the Managing Editor of Cinema Blend and the author of the new book, Release The Snyder Cut: The Crazy True Story Behind the Fight That Saved Zack Snyder’s Justice League.
Garret and I spoke to Sean for about 30 minutes and had a tremendous overall discussion about the 2017 film, the reason for writing this book, fandom, streaming numbers, HBO Max, and much more.
Here are some of the highlights…
O’Connell on how he got started on the journey of this book:
“…I sort of laid out the nuts and bolts of what had happened to Zack Snyder on Justice League. The changing of the guard of the directors, how the reshoots turned out, and she (O’Connell’s wife) kind of stopped me mid-pitch and she was like, listen, I know why that is interesting to you, but I don’t really care about all that stuff. Who are these people, who are the people dedicating their time and effort and personal lives to getting this movie released?”
O’Connell on the toxic reputation of the Synder Cut movement:
“…I can basically say that having been emersed in them for the past two years. That negative aspect, which is definitely there, Is not, in my opinion, the prevalent theme of the movement. If I had gone into this story blind…well, I did; I went into it not knowing anything about them and really tried to get a general sense of what they were trying to accomplish. If I had sat down to do that and was only overwhelmed by the negativity, then I would have wrote that side of it…”
“I really do believe that, that really loud negative vocal bit that exist on social media, it’s hard to deny that it’s there. It’s absolutely there but I don’t think it accurately represents the larger part of the movement. I think it’s a big part of the movement that is active on social media…”
Release The Snyder Cut: The Crazy True Story Behind the Fight That Saved Zack Snyder’s Justice League by Sean O’Connell will drop on 3/1/21, while the film itself Zack Snyder’s Justice League will stream on HBO Max on 3/18/21.
That is a little sneak peek of what you will get in Episode 178. Make sure you give the podcast a listen. CLICK HERE to download, listen via one of the players below, or wherever you find your podcasts. – Peter Verra
