UPDATE: Snyder has since returned to Instagram and posted the R-rated Rebel Moon director’s cut while The Last Photograph still has no distributor.
The ugly Justice League stories came out of the 2017 reshoots.
Jacob Chase was there a year earlier, courtesy of a $1,000 Doritos commercial that got him onto the production, on Zack Snyder’s 2016 set, and says it was a very different story.
Chase, who wrote and directed Insidious: Out of the Further, told The Hollywood Reporter that it was “not a controversial set to be on” while he was there, calling Snyder “the sweetest, most talented person” and saying his actors want to show up for him.
“It was not a controversial set to be on when I was there. It was lovely. Whatever people think of his films, Zack Snyder is the sweetest, most talented person, and his actors love to show up for him,” Chase said.
His favorite memory? Ben Affleck, in the full Batsuit and cowl, holding Chase’s laptop and cracking up at a commercial about dogs.
“My favorite moment was Ben Affleck, in his full Batsuit and cowl, holding my laptop and watching my funny little dog commercial,” said Chase. “He was just cackling and loving it. It was the most amazing visual.”
That loyalty runs both directions, and it’s the same thing our insiders keep describing.
For The Dark Knight Returns, we are told Snyder wants Henry Cavill back as Superman because “Zack loves the guy and is very loyal to his people,” and that he wants Ben Affleck back as Batman.
The Worst Justice League Stories Came From The 2017 Reshoots
Snyder stepped away in 2017 following a family tragedy. Joss Whedon then came in for rewrites and roughly 40 days of reshoots that reworked more than half the movie.
That’s the period behind the cast’s most serious complaints.
Gal Gadot told Israel’s N12 in May 2021 that Whedon threatened her career during the reshoots, saying he would make it “miserable” if she did something. She said she handled it immediately.
That confirmed reporting from The Hollywood Reporter a month earlier, which cited a witness who said Whedon boasted about the confrontation and claimed he could make Gadot look foolish in the movie after she objected to new dialogue.
Ray Fisher went public first, calling Whedon’s treatment of the cast and crew “gross, abusive, unprofessional” in July 2020. WarnerMedia opened an investigation and said in December 2020 that it had concluded and remedial action had been taken. Whedon has disputed Fisher’s account. Jason Momoa publicly backed Fisher.
Affleck’s comments get folded into the Snyder narrative, but his timeline matters.
He told the Los Angeles Times in January 2022 that “it just was the worst experience” and called it the nadir of his run, but blamed a combination of his divorce, being away from his kids, competing agendas, Snyder’s personal tragedy and the reshooting. He specifically said it wasn’t simply that the movie itself was bad.
Affleck got even more specific with The Hollywood Reporter in 2023, describing himself as miserable in London during the reshoots, standing in a rubber suit in front of a computer screen and deciding he was done. He had been planning to direct his own Batman movie. That stretch killed it.
That’s the timeline Chase’s account puts back into focus. He was there for Snyder’s 2016 shoot. The stories that poisoned Justice League came out of the 2017 reshoots.
Snyder Is Back On The Warner Bros. Lot
Snyder’s split with Warner Bros. in 2021 included arbitration and a quiet settlement, while several executives involved in the fight over Zack Snyder’s Justice League later collected settlements of their own.
Most of them are gone.
This month, the heads of WB films Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy brought Snyder back to the Warner Bros. lot to host a screening of Excalibur, where he received a hero’s welcome from a standing-room crowd of studio employees.
Per our insiders, The Dark Knight Returns is already fully storyboarded with Jay Oliva aboard and designed for IMAX, waiting to see what happens on the other side of the Paramount-Warner Bros. fight.
That’s what makes Chase’s decade-old story relevant now. He actually watched the Snyder-Affleck working relationship before everything that happened in 2017 became attached to the movie’s entire production.
The Last Photograph Hits The Same Wall
Snyder’s newest movie is already running into a familiar complaint.
The Last Photograph is reportedly considered too violent by potential buyers, which is the same objection raised against Watchmen, Batman v Superman, Justice League and Rebel Moon before the longer cuts turned out to be the better movies every single time.
Chase Turned The Justice League Opportunity Into A Franchise
Insidious: Out of the Further opened to $25.3 million domestic and $60.3 million worldwide against an $18 million budget, with the best audience score in the franchise’s 16-year history.
One business day later, Blumhouse handed him Sleepover, opening October 8, 2027 through Universal.
The guy who got onto Justice League with a $1,000 dog commercial has a franchise and a release date. The director he shadowed has The Dark Knight Returns storyboarded and sitting there, waiting on someone to say yes.
Gadot Is Talking Wonder Woman Again
UPDATE, August 31: Gadot has now said DC Studios never officially ended her Wonder Woman, and that she read her fate in how Henry Cavill and Patty Jenkins were handled.
Chase’s account isn’t the only reason that era is back in the conversation this week.
Promoting her new Prime Video thriller The Runner, Gal Gadot says she hasn’t “heard anything” from DC Studios since Gunn and Safran promised her a third Wonder Woman back in 2023, and offered a message of support to whoever plays the character next.
Per our source, though, the incoming regime is a different story: keep an eye on Gadot’s schedule, with a Wonder Woman 3 possibly moving before Cavill is free for Justice League or Superman.
Affleck’s Batman. Cavill’s Superman. Gadot’s Wonder Woman. Snyder storyboarded and waiting. The band that Chase watched work in 2016 is the same one our insiders keep naming.
Insidious: Out of the Further is now playing exclusively in theaters. Sleepover opens October 8, 2027.
