HBO Max next week will throw an exclusive fan watch party of “Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” the much-hyped, four-hour version of the DC superhero movie, featuring a live video discussion with Snyder himself.
The special watch party will kick off at 4 p.m. PT/7 p.m. ET on March 18, the day the movie is slated to premiere on WarnerMedia’s HBO Max streaming service. The event is being produced by co-viewing platform Scener, available at snydercut.scener (where fans can register to attend). An active HBO Max subscription is required to join the watch party — but otherwise, there’s no additional charge to attend.
“I’m excited to finally share my vision for ‘Justice League’ in a virtual screening with our incredible fanbase who, through the power of community and an inspiring grassroots campaign, played a major role in making this premiere possible,” Snyder said in a statement.
The intro by Snyder will include a moderated discussion with fans and a list of VIP invited guests. When the movie starts, Scener’s video chat and messaging features will let fans hear from producers about the movie as they watch together and viewers also can share real-time reactions (comments will be moderated).
“Our partnership with HBO Max for Snyder’s iconic film release signifies another major leap forward for co-watching, cementing this format far beyond the pandemic-era as a movement that’s driving the future of streaming entertainment,” said Joe Braidwood, co-founder and chief operating officer at Scener. According to Braidwood, Scener’s platform can support hundreds of thousands of concurrent viewers — and the company has been stress-testing its system ahead of the Snyder Cut event.
The March 18 “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” watch party will be available to users on both mobile and desktop devices, and users on Windows, Mac or Chromebook devices will see the full synchronized movie playback experience alongside fan reactions. Fans also will be able create their own private watch parties with friends using the customized “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” experience on Scener starting March 18.
According to Scener, its platform has exploded in popularity during the pandemic. Users streamed a collective 108 million minutes in February 2021, nearly double 55 million minutes from August 2020. For now, Braidwood said, Scener is focused on building its audience and improving its feature set; he declined to comment on whether WarnerMedia was paying Scener to run the Snyder Cut event.
“Scener as a business is not trying to proactively extract revenue from our partners — we’re trying to learn as much as we can,” said Braidwood. “We’re taking the long game.”
In addition to HBO Max, Scener’s platform supports co-viewing of services including Netflix, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, YouTube and Vimeo.
