In 2011, director Zack Snyder released a movie called Sucker Punch, which narrated the story of a young woman named Baby Doll (Emily Browning), who has to fight her way out of her fantasy world. The movie is one of the worst movies in Warner Bros. history. The movie received terrible reviews and proved to be a major financial loss.

Zack Snyder

Recently, Snyder talked about the movie and revealed that he is planning to release the director’s cut of the movie as he was not satisfied with the ending. The director also explained that he was disheartened to learn that the audience felt like the movie was “exploiting” its female characters.

Zack Snyder defended his 2011 movie, Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch (2011)

Recently, director Zack Snyder talked about his 2011 movie Sucker Punch on Letterboxd. In the lengthy message, Snyder highlighted that he was disheartened when he found out people claimed that the movie was “exploiting” its female characters,

“I feel like the main criticism of the film was that it was too exploitative. People took the movie as if the girls fighting and all that stuff was the movie. I found that slightly disheartening. It’s talking directly to them about what they wanna see. They wanna see the girls, they don’t wanna see the girls empowered. They wanna see them in sexy outfits. That was the whole thing to me; I always thought it was interesting when people would review the movie and say it’s exploitative. It’s like an anti-war movie that gets the war too good.”

The director also explained that normally “angsty teenage girls” approach him to tell him that they are fans of Sucker Punch. Snyder also said that the movie’s tone was “self-aware, self-reflexive audience observing the movie.”

Zack Snyder wants to release the director’s cut

Zack Snyder

The director also explained that he hopes to release the director’s cut for the movie in the near future. He wrote,
“You’ll get to see it at some point, I’m sure. I hope. I’ve never gotten around to doing the director’s cut. I still plan to at some point but in the original ending when Babydoll is in the chair in the basement with Blue – she’s already been lobotomized – when the cop shines the light on her, the set breaks apart and she stands up and she sings a song on stage. She sings, ‘Ooh, Child, things are gonna get easier,’ Blondie, and all the people that have been killed, join in and it’s the idea that in a weird way, even though she’s lobotomized, she’s kind of stuck in this infinite loop of euphoric victory. It’s weirdly not optimistic and optimistic at the same time. That’s kind of what the tone was at the end. We tested it and the studio thought it was too weird, so we changed it.”
Snyder initially planned a different ending for the movie, however, Warner Bros. was not satisfied with the idea, so, Snyder was forced to change it. On a budget of $82 million, the movie only grossed $89 million at the global box office.

Source: Variety