Eh, most of what I've seen from the Snydercut fandom are pretty cool folks. They've done more suicide prevention online than any recent fandom that I can remember. Tis' like pointing out that very vocal and what I consider minority aniti women and ppl of color Star Wars fandom that exist, even more so on a youtube content platform. That article did read like a petty hit piece tho, heh, probably one last suit on his way out.
It is a curious article.
ZSJL was released over a year ago. Fans and critics have weighed in; and most of us already know the soap opera-y backstory of how the restoration (eventually) came to exist. And yet, the
Rolling Stone writer revisits the subject with investigative zeal and attention — as if she might be exposing a scandal of Watergate-level significance.
For example, this bit caught my attention:
Pricey publicity stunts ensued, like a towering Times Square ad — which can cost more than $50,000 per day — and a plane flying over Comic Con with a banner calling for DC to release the Snyder Cut. None of the press reports at the time addressed who was footing the bill. “Where was the fundraiser? Why didn’t we ever see a Kickstarter campaign from the fans?” asks one insider who became skeptical of the grassroots nature of the SnyderVerse movement, considering the cost of such marketing endeavors.
The implication being that only someone with deep pockets (like Snyder, himself?
) could have financed these expensive displays of fan devotion.
Well, I’m no investigative journalist. But after a three-minute search, I found a 2019
Hollywood Reporter article about the plane banner over the San Diego Comic Con. Not much significance was ascribed to this stunt. Rather, it was presented as typical Comic Con wackiness. And the cost of the banner was mentioned: a mere $1200. I’m less certain about the Times Square ad. Apparently, the bigger ones can be upwards of several million per year.
But according to reports, the Snyder Cut ad was on a pair of smaller boards and ran for a mere twelve hours. Moreover, the ad graphics only appeared for seconds at a time — sharing the same electronic billboard with several other advertisers. Does
that cost $50K? I dunno. But if it was substantially less, that puts it within the modest means of crowd sourcing fans at the NY Comic Con — which, according to articles at the time, is where the funds came from. Now, maybe this is all wrong. Maybe the Times Square ad really did cost $50K and the
RS writer has her smoking gun. But it seems it would be easy enough to research something like the
Hollywood Reporter piece (like I did) and debunk it. Or call up the Times Square agency and request their rates for a 12-hour ad placement. Instead, she cites an unnamed “insider” who’s “skeptical.” So, yeah. The article reads less like serious investigation and more like personal peeve.