Justice League #ReleaseTheSnyderCut campaign was reportedly fuelled by bots and director Zack Snyder may have been involved

In the report published by Rolling Stone, nearly 13% of accounts involved in the campaign were bots, while that number may not seem big, however, it is considering that normally the number of bots in media campaigns is around 3-5%.

This uptick in bots suggests that there might have been some outside manipulation and could explain a lot of the online harassment faced by critics of the director.

The report also had some interesting revelations about Director Zack Snyder and does imply that he may be involved in some of the more targeted attacks.

These are some of the major revelations from the report

Zack Snyder Reportedly Threatened To Ruin Geoff Johns & Jon Berg

Snyder wanted the names of the two producers removed from the Snyder Cut version of the movie, as he blamed them for him losing creative control over the project.

According to the report, he even went as far as to threaten an executive in the studio's postproduction department, reportedly saying, "Geoff and Jon are dragging their feet on taking their names off my cut. Now, I will destroy them on social media.”

At Least 13% Of #ReleaseTheSnyderCut Accounts Were Fake

One of the biggest revelations from the report was that 13% of the accounts involved with the campaign were fake.

The website for the campaign reportedly belonged to an Ad agency that promised to bring "cheap, instant Avatar traffic to your website.”

A digital marketing executive explained the bizarre phenomenon, “Just look at the drop: [That hashtag was] trending at a million tweets a day for when they wanted to release the Snyder Cut. And it dropped down to 40,000 within days. You don’t see a drop like that organically.” Instead, the executive says, it appears to be a classic example of “weaponizing a movement.”

Zack Snyder Stole Hard Drives From Warner Bros.

According to the report, the director stole hard drives from Warner Bros, that contained his footage from Justice League . Since it was studio property, they asked him to return the hard drives, but he refused. 

Zack Snyder Received $60 Million To Finish His Director's Cut - And He Secretly Shot Scenes During The Pandemic

After the Snyder Cut was green light by the studio, the studio paid the director around 60 million dollars to finish shooting the project. 

According to the report the project was nowhere near actually being done and needed extensive special effects work.

And he had to shoot secretly during the pandemic and did not follow any of the COVID protocols and requested an additional 13 million to shoot additional footage.

Zack Snyder's Statement

The director of course responded to the allegations and told Rolling Stone

"As an artist it was fulfilling to be able to finally see my vision realized after such a difficult time in my life and for it to be so well received. I am grateful to both the fan community and Warner Bros. for allowing this to happen. To dwell on negativity and rumors serves no one."

This is the latest controversy surrounding the DC cinematic universe.

The DCEU has moved forward and separated itself from Snyder's version, Hopefully, Warner Bros can move movies past these issues and start making solid movies that fans deserve.