The reason for keeping Justice League’s runtime a secret until a couple of days before the movie's release soon became obvious. Whether it was a good decision on the part of the studio to limit the movie to two hours remains to be seen. There’s a chance that Justice League might grow legs in the coming weeks, but Coco will certainly take a huge bite of this week’s US box office take.
Nevertheless, it’s clear that fans aren’t happy with the decision. Many of the scenes we saw in the trailers were left on the cutting room floor; some characters were completely removed, including Iris West (Kiersey Clemons); and other characters’ backstories were cut short. Apparently, Cyborg drew the shortest stick there.
Aquaman suffered the same fate. Justice League was supposed to clarify his reasons for feeling like an outcast. We also expected the movie to introduce Vulko (Willem Dafoe) and incorporate some elements of mythology, but none of those things happened in a satisfying manner.
Jason Momoa told Entertainment Weekly that if Zack Snyder's original plan had been followed, Justice League might have been a two-part film:
The challenging part is [that the Justice League story] is only about a weekend in Arthur Curry's life. [Fans] might be like, “Why is he that grumpy? Why's he hiding up there?” We had it all planned out. A lot of things got cut. But it's not my movie. It's a huge movie, introducing three new characters, and for myself and The Flash and Cyborg, there was a lot that was there that we just couldn't get in. It could have been two movies. We had some stuff with Willem Dafoe. The whole Atlantean part, about me being this reluctant king. There was no need for it, because you're going to see it in Aquaman. It's not an Aquaman movie, it's a Justice League movie.
It is a shame that this Atlantean part of the movie was left out. Momoa seemed to be having a lot of fun with the role. However, as much fun as the character is, he could have been on par with the Flash, who stole the show every time he was on the screen.
But maybe we'll get to see the deleted scenes in an Extended/Ultimate Edition!
