At the end of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, a dedication appears onscreen. “For Autumn,” it reads as an elegiac cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” by the singer Allison Crowe, swells over the credits. It’s a valediction to the director’s adopted daughter, Autumn Snyder, who loved sci-fi and stories of superheroes and considered it her favorite song.
As the producer of the film—and as Zack’s wife and Autumn’s stepmother—Deborah Snyder had heard the recording several times before she and her husband sat down to watch the film, all four hours of it, for the first time all the way through. The Snyders had talked about Crowe’s version of the song endlessly during production over the last year. They’d seen the movie in chunks countless times by then, too. Up until just two weeks before its HBO Max debut, they were knee-deep in fine-tuning sound mixes and color grading for the different technical versions necessary for streaming.
But finally watching together the culmination of their work evoked feelings Snyder didn’t expect. Four years after the weight of Autumn’s death by suicide became too much to balance with the demands of a blockbuster movie set, here the couple sat watching an even grander version of the story they’d set out to tell—with Autumn’s name gracing the final frame. “It strikes you in this very visceral way,” Snyder remembers. Their film about gods and superheroes leveled by grief and stumbling toward emotional restoration can’t help but “resonate differently for us” now, she says. “We’ve gone on quite a journey personally.”
Producer Deborah Snyder, guiding mind behind great Hollywood film releases, talks with Melissa Leon of The Daily Beast – ‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’ Producer Deborah Snyder on Joss Whedon, DC Fans, and the ‘Joy’ of Closure – full interview/story @ https://www.thedailybeast.com/zack-snyders-justice-league-producer-deborah-snyder-on-joss-whedon-dc-fans-and-the-joy-of-closure?source=articles&via=rss