Zack Snyder's Justice League actor reveals original plans for the ending

Martian Manhunter in Justice League
(Image credit: Warner Bros.)

Harry Lennix, who plays Martian Manhunter in the DCEU, has talked more about the original ending of Zack Snyder's Justice League.

In the movie, Martian Manhunter, AKA J'onn J'onzz, visits Ben Affleck's Batman to offer his help in the coming struggle against Darkseid, right after Batman's terrifying vision of the Knightmare timeline – or, an apocalyptic future where Darkseid has succeeded in conquering Earth. Originally, though, this scene would have included more than one hero arriving on Batman's doorstep.

"All along I knew that I was going to be in it. It was going to be Martian Manhunter and John Stewart," Lennix said on the LightCast podcast. "J'onn J'onzz and John Stewart, as it were, in the movie. But then they made [Snyder] take out that part."

Snyder has talked before about Warner Bros. pushing back on this Green Lantern appearing in the Snyder Cut. "They were like, 'We have plans for John Stewart and we want to do our own announcement,'" the director told Vanity Fair. "So I said all right, I'll give you that. So [Martian Manhunter] was the compromise."

Lennix continued: "So I did go in later, like in October, to do the scene with Ben Affleck. So I think that was the recipient, that is to say, the information that was conveyed in that scene, [Snyder] just had Martian Manhunter do it, which I thought was fun. 

"He, I think said something to the effect that he felt that there was a good way to tie it up, the information that needs to be put out there is put out there. We know that the Green Lantern will live on in another part of the franchise, such as the DCEU."

Snyder has also revealed that he considered a role for Ryan Reynolds, who starred in Green Lantern way back in 2011, in the Snyder Cut: "There was another idea I had for the Green Lantern that wasn't Ryan, and so I thought that if we had gone down this path of Green Lantern, I would have had to have Ryan as the additional Lantern."

At the moment, the only plan for Green Lantern in the DCEU seems to be a TV series set for HBO Max – a movie, Green Lantern Corps, was announced in 2015, but it appears to be stuck in development.

For the moment, though, you can stream Zack Snyder's Justice League on HBO Max, and if you're caught up on all four hours of the movie, check out our deep dives into everything you could possibly want to know about it here:

Molly Edwards
Entertainment Writer

I'm an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering all things film and TV for the site's Total Film and SFX sections. I previously worked on the Disney magazines team at Immediate Media, and also wrote on the CBeebies, MEGA!, and Star Wars Galaxy titles after graduating with a BA in English.