In a surprising turn of events, Warner Bros. is hunting down Zack Snyder and his legacy, i.e. DCEU’s Oscar-worthy film, Justice League: Snyder’s Cut (2021) for allegedly accumulating through bots and fake accounts, a toxic movement prior to the release of Snyder’s Cut and fuelling the restoration of SnyderVerse.
A lengthy op-ed-like exclusive feature article on Rolling Stone revealed in brutal strokes, the darker side of the SnyderVerse fandom, and although, at present, the internet is divided between believing if it’s all true or simply a WB smear campaign, the report trudges on in print, under the public eye, and on social media.
Related article: Fans Thank Zack Snyder For The SnyderVerse As ‘Justice League’ Trends Again
Warner Bros. Launch an Inquiry Into Zack Snyder’s Activity
Prior to the release of Snyder’s Cut, the director had grown restless and impatient over the fruitlessness of his efforts, working under the former wing of the current WarnerMedia. The writers and producers, Geoff Johns and Jon Berg, associated with DCEU and Warner Bros. production of Justice League were being called out and Zack Snyder, with support from his wife, Deborah Snyder had apparently asked for their removal.
Also read: WB’s Pathetic Attempt At Burying the Snyderverse Gives It Enough Free Publicity To Be Restored
When this didn’t follow suit, a battle was launched on social media, helming millions of tweets, and thousands of accounts, all getting “activated” and launching the #ReleasetheSnyderCut campaign to make sure the studio listened. The social media crowd was already abuzz by the time as a result of the incessant radicalizing and influential account activities.
Related article: Why Zack Snyder’s SnyderVerse Fail DCEU
The movement soon became increasingly toxic and members were found sending hate mail and death threats to the writer (Geoff Johns), chairman (Toby Emmerich), and president (Walter Hamada) of the studio along with tagging their families and children. Later reports, collected via digital companies that were hired by a concerned WB to look into the matter, claim that almost 13% of those bots and accounts responsible for influencing public opinion were fake, greatly surpassing the sanctioned limit of 3-5%
Also read: Justice League SnyderCut: Leto’s Joker Is A Part of The Knightmare Timeline In A Big Way
Zack Snyder’s Final Year Working Under the WB Wing
When Zack Snyder’s Justice League finally saw the light of day in March 2021, an incipient movement #RestoretheSnyderVerse gained enough traction to rack up a million tweets in a single day. A digital marketing executive displayed how that could not have been feasible in real-time:
“Just look at the drop: [The hashtag] was trending at a million tweets a day for when they wanted to release the SnyderCut. And it dropped to 40,000 within days. You don’t see a drop like that organically.”
Also read: WarnerMedia’s Ann Sarnoff Reveals if WB Will ‘Restore the SnyderVerse’
According to the executive, this was a stereotypical example of how movements could be easily weaponized. The Rolling Stone reports went on to claim: “So while Snyder had scores of authentic, flesh-and-blood fans, those real stans were amplified by a disproportionate number of bogus accounts.” Moreover —
More than 20 people involved with both the original Justice Leaque and Snyder’s cut, most of whom believe that the director was working to manipulate the ongoing campaign. Snyder claims that, “if anyone” was pulling strings on the social media fervor, it was Warner Bros. “trying to leverage my fan base to bolster subscribers to their new streaming service.” But one source maintains, “Zack was like a Lex Luthor wreaking havoc.”
Source: Rolling Stone
