Zack Snyder was 'fired' from Justice League months before daughter's suicide

Director Zack Snyder was allegedly fired from Warner Bros' Justice League, which clashes with the official reason given, that he left the project due to personal reasons after his 20-year-old daughter Autumn Snyder committed suicide.

Obviously both reasons can be true, but according to veteran reporter Josh L. Dickey - who is leaving the journalism business and decided to dish some dirt on Twitter - he was sacked around January/February 2017.

Snyder officially left the project in May, citing the death of his daughter two months prior in March. His producing partner and wife Deborah Snyder also left the project to spend time with her family.

Joss Whedon was brought on board to helm reshoots and rewrite significant portions of the film.

Dickey's claim was backed up by Collider's Matt Goldberg, who heard similar rumblings about the nature of Snyder's departure, but he and other journalists held off on reporting it given what the director was going through personally.

As Goldberg explains: "No one wanted to pile on to a guy who had just lost a child. While the truth matters, the exact reason for Snyder's departure wasn't vital information because the outcome was still the same - he was off Justice League and Joss Whedon was brought on board."

Collider also cites two separate sources who both described Snyder's early rough cut of the movie as "unwatchable".

Justice League was an important film for Warner Bros' DC Extended Universe, given it was the equivalent of Marvel's enormously successful Avengers. After Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was widely panned and failed to live up to box office expectations, then Suicide Squad was equally derided, a big change was needed.

Wonder Woman was the series' first major critical and commercial success, and shone as an example of what the DCEU could be, but Justice League was still coming with Batman v Superman and Man of Steel director Snyder on board.

Whedon's introduction was clearly born out of the hope he'd bring his trademark witticism to the film, and capture at least a little of the magic that helped Avengers succeed for Marvel. It didn't work.

Justice League - which features arguably the two most recognisable superheroes in the world in Superman and Batman, as well as Wonder Woman whose own solo movie grossed over $820 million - made just over $650 million worldwide.

A film with that caliber of star actors and characters should easily be making break the $1 billion mark in today's market.

It was also critically panned. In our review we criticised the "tug of war" between Snyder's and Whedon's fingerprints on the movie, which left it with a wildly imbalanced tone.