‘Justice League’ Writer Told Warner Bros. to Take His Name Off Whedon Cut: ‘It’s an Act of Vandalism’
Zack Sharf
Now that “Zack Snyder‘s Justice League” has made its HBO Max debut, screenwriter Chris Terrio has come forward in an interview with Vanity Fair to sound off against Warner Bros. on their handling of Zack Snyder’s comic book tentpoles. Terrio, an Oscar-winning screenwriter thanks to “Argo,” was brought onto Snyder’s “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” at the request of Ben Affleck. Terrio stuck around for Snyder’s “Justice League,” only for Warner Bros. to overhaul his script once Snyder left and Joss Whedon boarded to oversee post-production and reshoots. Terrio called Whedon and Warner Bros.’ 2017 “Justice League” cut “an act of vandalism.”
“I was in LA at the time working on ‘Star Wars’ [‘The Rise of Skywalker’],” Terrio said about first watching the Whedon cut. “I was on the west side of Los Angeles working with J.J. [Abrams] at the time, and I drove to the studio and I sat down and watched it a couple of weeks before release. I immediately called my lawyer and said, ‘I want to take my name off the film.’ [The lawyer] then called Warner Bros. and told them that I wanted to do that.”
Because the film had already been locked and sent to exhibitors, removing Terrio’s name from the movie would require new prints and copies of the movie to be made and thus a release delay would need to take place. That’s when Terrio decided against following through with his plan to get his name off Whedon’s cut, as “it would be an international scandal and news story.
“So I shut up and I said nothing publicly,” Terrio said. “I’ve never said anything about ‘Justice League’ since then, but the movie doesn’t represent my work…[Removing my name] would have created a whole wave of negative publicity that I think would’ve made the situation even worse for the actors, and for all the craftspeople who had worked on it, for all kinds of people. But I’m awfully happy that Zack Snyder’s cut of ‘Justice League’ is the one that is higher on my IMDb page.”
Terrio was not invited to the premiere of the Whedon cut and said, “I never watched the film again.” The 2017 “Justice League” was released with Terrio sharing screenwriting credit with Joss Whedon. On “Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” released to streaming via HBO Max last month, Terrio has sole screenwriting credit.
Head over to Vanity Fair’s website to read more from Terrio’s interview, including his detailing of Warner Bros.’ interference during the making of “Batman v Superman.”
