But this is streaming and Zach Snyder was hired on the premise that he delivers his vision. There is no studio jumping in to make cuts.
Studios view the movie as a product. This process has a physical requirement to consume it of 2 hours. The point of cuts is to have more screenings in one room rather than hiring 2 rooms to show the movie. That studio integrity is met with frustration when they keep a movie as the director intended and the theater has 4 screening per day because it’s a 3 hour movie with 15 minutes between showings for cleaning.
Movie theaters are also putting pressure on the studio for short movies because they want people to move through the theater. Movie theaters don’t care about what they show as long as it brings in bodies who will eat and drink concessions. The movies are the feed and people are the cattle to be processed as quickly as possible.
The theaters want a shorter movie and the studio wants a shorter movie, so really the only person who can hold up the idea of a long movie is the director with the promise the movie will guarantee repeat viewings despite the smaller number of screenings. And Zach Snyder can’t make that promise.
His movies are the narrative equivalent of a Michael Bay movie - except Bay has better narrative and understands how to build tension. Snyder is incapable of making a low budget movie about genuine people. He is only talented when picking the color of blaster shots. His characters are trash. His plots are boring. His camera work nearly incomprehensible. There is no amount of work he can do to make his original cut work because there is nothing of substance that was cut out.