Zack Snyder steps back from JUSTICE LEAGUE

Zack Snyder has decided not to finish the Justice League film after a family tragedy. The film will be finished (by that I mean, pick-up scenes will be written and shot by, and the final editing will be overseen) by Joss Whedon.

Originally, Warner Brothers wanted to push the release date back, but Snyder refused, soldiering on for another two months before realizing that he just couldn't finish the job.

Here are some observations.

1. The stakes for Wonder Woman are now enormous.
When Avengers director Joss Whedon was tapped for Batgirl, my thought was, "oh, no, if Batgirl's the first good DC film, it's going to look like the Snyder/Johns retool didn't work at all and now they've brought in Marvel's most famous director to clean up their mess." Now that Whedon is finishing Justice League, inevitably, anything good about that film is going to be laid at his feet by anti-DC/anti-Snyder folks.

2. Why Whedon? 
Whedon and Snyder have entirely different storytelling methods. I literally cannot imagine Joss Whedon's Watchmen or Zack Snyder's The Avengers. Apparently Whedon was Snyder's choice, which is what makes this tolerable to me, but between this and the studio politicking above, I can't help but feel like now, no matter what happens, Snyder's gonna get nudged aside in the future.

Which is, frankly, a shame. Snyder's not the most popular man in Hollywood, of course, but he has a vision, and Warner needs to either get behind that vision or get a new visionary (undercutting Snyder with the BvS theatrical cut was the single dumbest thing in this entire attempt at a cinematic universe). Now it looks like they're going to go with the latter option by default. Which is sad; if I wanted the Whedon approach, I'd watch Marvel movies.

On an unrelated note, Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is awesome. Wait, I already did that review.