If the release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League is proof of anything, it’s that a strong fan base can sometimes move mountains, even in a landscape as vast as Hollywood. Of course, with HBO Max having catered to fans by unleashing Snyder’s 4-hour epic on its streaming platform, that act has opened the floodgates for other films to be reintroduced so long as the demand is there. Take Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch, for example. Recently while speaking with Vanity Fair, Snyder explained that a director’s cut of the film exists and hinted that he wouldn’t mind seeing it unleashed.
“[Sucker Punch] was the first time where I really faced, like, a true radical restructuring of the film for it to be more commercial,” Snyder says in the video in which he takes audiences on a guided tour through his library of films. “And there is a director’s cut of that movie that has yet to be released. I’ll say that out loud.”
Personally, I love the way Snyder all but winks at the camera after alerting his audience to the existence of a director’s cut for Sucker Punch. It’s like he’s daring fans to stoke the flames of the hashtag fire once again.
As it happens, Sucker Punch wasn’t Snyder’s most popular film. It bombed real hard at the box office with a worldwide gross of $89.7M and was harshly criticized for the sexualized depiction of its female characters. Snyder addresses this last bit in the new video, saying, “I didn’t dress them like that you did.” I’m not sure of how much water that holds, but let’s take a look at the full quote for more context, shall we?
“It’s a protest movie in a lot of ways. It’s a movie about genre,” Snyder explained. “I was asked at the time ‘Why did you dress the girls like that?’ and I’d always go ‘I didn’t dress them like that, you did.’ I always saw it as an indictment of, in some ways, popular culture. I think at the time I was criticized for it being the opposite, like, some sort of sexist rant. It was fun to make and I still love it to this day.”
Much like David Ayer’s cut of Suicide Squad, I’m not holding my breath for a director’s cut of Sucker Punch. That said, I’d welcome it in a heartbeat. Sucker Punch is easily one of my favorite films helmed by Zack Snyder and I’d be curious to see what his ultimate version of that movie looks like. How about you? Are you ready to be hit with a definitive version of Sucker Punch? Let us know in the comments section below.