If recent reports are to be believed, there’s a very good reason that Joss Whedon received a screenwriting credit on Justice League.
Ever since the two-time Avengers director agreed to shepherd JL over the finish line, there have been rumblings of extensive reshoots and “significant” changes being made to the film’s story, which Whedon helped “fine-tune” with co-writer and all-around DC mainstay Chris Terrio.
Now, we’re learning a little more about what exactly Joss Whedon tinkered with. The latest report, which comes to us by way of Mark Hughes from Superhero News, claims that the director has written close to “two dozen pages of new material.” Not only that, but he’s also cut a few characters and scenes. There’s no word on who or what’s been scrapped, but previous rumors have pointed to both Lex Luthor and Deathstroke being left on the cutting room floor. Whether that’s accurate or not, though, remains to be seen.
For now, you can take a look at Hughes’ report in full down below:
"I think there’s some confusion about what precisely Whedon has to do. What I heard is he’s done roughly two dozen – or almost two dozen – pages of new material and rewrites.
On top of that, there were a lot of scenes that were cut out. You know, Darkseid [has] been excised from more of the film for one thing. There’s scenes that’ve been cut and characters who’ve been cut from the film. Don’t take that as me saying Darkseid has been completely cut from the film, but I’m just saying things have been changed.
Yes, it’s fair to say that probably a third of the script total – when you add the new pages he wrote, the rewrites that he wrote, the deletion of pages and scenes out of the movie,” Hughes finished"
Though this update doesn’t come from the studio, Hughes is certainly a more reliable source than say Reddit or 4chan, so we’re inclined to believe him. Not to mention that what he says here falls in line with almost everything else we’ve been hearing about these reshoots and the work Whedon’s put into them.
Regardless of how much of this ends up turning out to be true though, it’s very clear that the Justice League rumor mill continues to operate at full tilt. And it’ll likely do so right up until the film’s release on November 17th.
