Warner Bros. removed the footage from Joss Whedon’s 2017 Justice League cut from the latest Black Adam trailer after fans expressed their disappointment.
The DCEU has been through its fair share of ups and downs over the last few years, but Warner Bros. Discovery has been moving forward with the cinematic universe. After years of being in development, Black Adam is finally ready to hit theaters in a month.
Black Adam is popularly known as Shazam’s biggest enemy, but Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam will be depicted as an anti-hero, with the film exploring the morally ambiguous areas of the villain’s character.
Johnson has joked about wanting to clash with Justice League ever since he landed Black Adam’s role. However, though the league still exists in the DCEU, Warner Bros. hasn’t brought the members back together on the big screen since 2017’s Justice League. The 2017 version was Josh Whedon’s altered version of the original Zack Snyder film.
The Snyder Cut was released in HBO Max in 2021, but Warner Bros. still considers Whedon’s version canon to the DCEU. Snyder’s 4-hour-long version exists in a separate continuity. In the latest Black Adam trailer, Warner Bros. reaffirmed their stance by including footage from Whedon’s Justice League and Birds of Prey in the trailer.
However, the decision was not received favorably by DC fans. Whedon’s Justice League had disappointed both viewers and critics, and then bombed at the box office. But the film became even more controversial when issues about Whedon creating a toxic and hostile work environment during the reshoots came to light.
Naturally, when the studio used footage from Whedon’s Justice League in the Black Adam trailer, fans expressed disappointment at the studio’s stance of still looking at Whedon’s version as DCEU canon.
It appears that Warner Bros. paid heed to their concerns, and re-released a “corrected” version of the trailer. Dwayne Johnson shared the new Black Adam trailer on social media. Check out the new trailer below.
In the first trailer, Warner Bros. had used the scene from Whedon’s Justice League where Steppenwolf is swinging his weapon into the ground and causing an explosion. This was one of the major changes that Whedon made in Snyder’s work, replacing Darkseid with Steppenwolf.
In the correct version of the Black Adam trailer, the only footage used from Snyder’s previous DCEU works is from Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice.
However, it is questionable why Warner Bros. would use any footage from Whedon’s Justice League cut in the Black Adam trailer, given the controversies surrounding it. Even if they did not want to use any footage from the Snyder Cut, it does not look good for them to use footage from Whedon’s version, for the various reasons mentioned above.
Though Warner Bros. still considers it canon for some strange reason, most recent DCEU films have not made any references to Whedon’s version. Patty Jenkins went on to claim that Whedon’s version is even disliked by DCEU directors.
Time will tell if Warner Bros. will change their stance, or continue utilizing Whedon’s version in their marketing material.
About Black Adam
Black Adam is an upcoming American superhero film based on the DC Comics fictional supervillain, directed by Jaume Collett-Serra. It is a spinoff of the 2019 movie Shazam!, and the 11th film in the DCEU franchise.
Black Adam is the antihero to Shazam and possesses the same powers as the white-caped superhero. But after being imprisoned for 5000 years, he is finally free, and now, the Justice Society of America, a team of superheroes, must stop him before he fulfills his mission to wreak havoc on the world that rejected him.
The film stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as Black Adam, and joining him are cast members Noah Centineo, Aldis Hodge, Sarah Shahi, Marwan Kenzari, Quintessa Swindell, Pierce Brosnan, and Viola Davis.
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