Zack Snyder has plans for a director’s cut of Sucker Punch.
Snyder told Letterbox how the original ending for 2011’s Sucker Punch was changed for the movie’s theatrical release. He detailed what the ending of the film would look like in a director’s cut, which he hopes to make.
“I’ve never gotten around to doing the director’s cut,” Snyder said. “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.”
He continued, “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.”
Zack Snyder, Sucker Punch, and director’s cuts
Sucker Punch stars Emily Browning as Babydoll, a young woman committed to a mental hospital at the beginning of the film. When trapped there, Babydoll journeys into a fantasy world alongside four other patients, all of whom are trying to escape the institution prior to being lobotomized.
The film received mostly negative reviews and grossed approximately $89.8 million at the worldwide box office with a budget of $82 million. While the theatrical cut of Sucker Punch was rated PG-13, an extended R-rated cut with an additional 18 minutes of footage was included in the movie’s Blu-ray release.
Snyder has previously spoken about his desire to make a director’s cut of Sucker Punch, as he told Vanity Fair in 2021 that working on the theatrical version was “the first time where I really faced, like, a true radical restructuring of the film for it to be more commercial.”
A director’s cut of Sucker Punch wouldn’t be the first time Snyder has revisited one of his films. Having stepped away from directing Justice League during post-production in 2017, Warner Bros. Pictures released Zack Snyder’s Justice League, a four-hour-long version of the film matching his original vision, in 2021.
Additionally, 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, 2009’s Watchmen, and 2004’s Dawn of the Dead, all of which were directed by Snyder, received expanded cuts.
