The mods looking after the SnyderCut subreddit have deleted a post calling on fans to review bomb the upcoming Superman movie and issued a statement to their community members.
On Monday, DC Universe steward James Gunn responded to the post, which had issued a call to arms to “stand up and fight for SnyderVerse on July 11.”
The user called on fans to “post spoilers everywhere,” “leave bad ratings on review sites,” and “reserve tickets online but don’t complete the purchase.”
“Gunn fired the first shot and killed the Snyderverse and here is our chance to take the fight back to him,” the post ended.
After a Threads user brought the post to Gunn’s attention, he replied to dismiss its impact on Superman’s potential success.
“Lol I think we'll survive,” he said. “I'm not sure the eight people that listen to that guy (I'm going to go out on a limb and guess it's a guy) are going to impact the course of events.”
Now, the r/SnyderCut mods have explained that they removed the post about two hours after it was posted, and that it had little engagement at that time. Of course, a screenshot of the post was already doing the rounds on social media by that point, and was on its way to Gunn on Threads.
The mods then distanced themselves from the original post and its content in the locked thread:
“Our staff never approved that post and does not endorse what it said. This is a public sub, where posts do not have to be pre-approved. The mere appearance of a post on our sub does not represent any endorsement by us. Our moderators delete posts after they are made if they violate any of our policies or Reddit's policies. There was never any question that this post violated our policies, both explicitly and in spirit, and needed to be immediately removed.
“The post wasn't so much controversial as it was universally disapproved of. We support everyone's right to vote with their wallets by choosing to not see a movie. But we do not support any dishonesty or manipulation aimed at stopping someone else from choosing to see a movie.”
This isn’t the first time the infamous Zack Snyder fandom has hit the headlines. Snyderverse fans played a part in Warner Bros.' 2021 release of the Snyder Cut of Justice League, and, last year, Suicide Squad 2016 director David Ayer was forced to respond to an online backlash against his support for Gunn’s Superman and its debut trailer.
Ayer, whose widely panned Suicide Squad movie formed a part of Snyder's now defunct DCEU, had initially taken to X/Twitter to ask fans not to launch the latest ‘Ayer Cut’ campaign at the same time as the Superman trailer release date. Ayer, clearly exacerbated by what he'd witnessed on social media as a result, announced he was taking a “step back” from the discourse.
Gunn touched briefly on the subject of some within the Snyderverse fandom rooting for Superman and his new DCU to fail, in a recent interview with Rolling Stone.
“I don’t mind it,” he said. “I think it’s good. I think you don’t wanna have everybody root for you. And I have an actor who reads everything online. I won’t say who it is, but he’ll read this article, and he’ll know who it is. It’s one of the top five in Superman. And this actor gets so upset over things that people say. I said, ‘First of all, you realize that the trailer came out and [reaction] was 97, 98% positive. These people help us, because you don’t want everything to seem 100% positive.'
“It’s all right to have an opposing force every once in a while. Some of the things get ridiculous — I just know that every time something comes out, it doesn’t matter how positively received, there’s gonna be something that is of great controversy. It was great controversy that the sun caused Superman pain.”
In the same interview with Rolling Stone, Gunn explained why he ditched the subtitles for this July's Superman and next summer's Supergirl.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
