Fans of filmmaker Zack Snyder understand that the theatrical cut of each director’s movies is not the be all and end all version. The director frequently brings Director’s Cuts of his best works, and those tend to be the versions of the films that his fans prefer, be it the Director’s Cut of Watchmen, to the legendary Snyder Cut of Justice League … which has a celebrated, controversial history. There have been rumblings of a “Snyder Cut” of one of Snyder’s lesser-known features (at least compared to, say, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), with the director adding fuel to the fire to get fans amped up.
Zack Snyder directed a number of music videos before bursting on the scene with 2004’s Dawn of the Dead, which belongs in the conversation of the 30 best horror movies. He moved on to 300 and Watchmen, which earned him more than enough cache to start doing “one for me” projects. That included Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole and Sucker Punch, and it’s the latter that Snyder is currently discussing as being worthy of a Director’s Cut.
This longer cut has been rumored for some time, with co-star Jamie Chung talking about how the existing, extended scenes would have changed the movie from PG-13 to R. And now, in a conversation with The IFC Center, Snyder touched on the possibility of a longer Sucker Punch cut surfacing one day, and he said:
Brazil was a big influence on the movie as well. I'd say those three movies really – Brazil, Frances, and All That Jazz – really were the main influences of the movie. I've never gotten around to doing the director's cut. I still plan to at some point. But in the original ending, when Babydoll is in the chair in the basement with Blue - she's already been lobotomized - when the cop shines the light on her, the set breaks apart and she stands up and she sings a song on stage. … She sings, ‘Ooh, Child, things are gonna get easier.’ Blondie, and all the people that have been killed, join in and it's the idea that in a weird way, even though she's lobotomized, she's kind of stuck in this infinite loop of euphoric victory. It's weirdly not optimistic, and optimistic at the same time. That's kind of what the tone was at the end. We tested it and the studio thought it was too weird, so we changed it.
Ah, studio notes. The bane of creativity in Hollywood. It feels like Zack Snyder has faced more notes from studio executives than most any other director. Or, at least, he makes his struggles public, open to talking about his obstacles in interviews such as this. And again (not to keep bringing this up), but the debacle over the Snyder Cut of Justice League fueled social media for years. Heck, I even wrote a book about it.
Should Zack Snyder eventually get to release the Director’s Cut of Sucker Punch, he will have extended cuts of so many versions of his films, suggesting that Snyder has had to compromise his vision almost every time to get his movies into theaters. This might be a big part of the reason why Snyder has transitioned over to Netflix for more original movies, including Army of the Dead and the highly anticipated sci-fi thriller Rebel Moon. It’s very possible that he sees more creative freedom (and less notes) from the streamer. Either way, it’s working for him.
We don’t know what needs to happen for Snyder to get to release his director’s cut of Sucker Punch, but if there’s any movement on that front, we’ll bring it to you immediately.
