The name Zack Snyder is synonymous with widely successful if divisive blockbusters films. When you come across it, you probably think of Justice League, 300, and Army of the Dead. But he has made other films and some of them were not quite as memorable or nearly as successful as the films listed prior.
One of these films is Sucker Punch, which came out in 2011 and his first based on an original concept. Unfortunately, it bombed at the box office – badly. The film was embarrassingly unpopular with critics and it only managed an embarrassing 22% Rotten Tomatoes score.
During a recent interview with Letterboxd, Snyder gave us an insight into his thoughts about the film, twelve years on from its release. He said that he still has plans for a director’s cut and will get around to it someday.
In his words, “I’ve never gotten around to doing the director’s cut. I still plan to at some point.”
Sucker Punch is the latest film we will hear Snyder has plans to release a director’s cut for. Back in June, we told you the Justice League director has plans to release an explicit cut of his forthcoming Netflix film Rebel Moon.
Snyder followed his director’s cut comment up with the revelation that the Sucker Punch ending we saw was not his first choice. He said, “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.”
Unfortunately for him, the studio that produced the film thought it was too weird and he had to write a new ending. If he ever gets around to making a director’s cut, there is no doubt it will have his original ending, regardless of how weird some people think it is.
Sucker Punch was a very polarizing film as is evident with the overwhelming negative reviews. Snyder acknowledged this in the interview. He said, “To be frank, the people I’ve run across who’ve come to me and said ‘SUCKER PUNCH is my favorite movie’ are normally angsty teenage girls. It’s like a Morrissey song or something.”
Many critics said the film exploited its female characters but Snyder disagrees. During the interview, he said he found the criticism “slightly disheartening.” From his comments, we get the idea that the film was intended to be a self-reflexive project that deconstructs the action genre. Unfortunately, many critics misunderstood it and tagged it exploitative.
If you’ve ever wondered just how much Snyder made for Warner Bros. while he worked with the studio, we wrote an article about it and you can read it here.
Sucker Punch will be screened at the IFC Center in New York this weekend.
