According
to recent news reports Warner Brothers and DC Comics are “looking at
Marvel's recent success for a new way to operate.” Does this mean that the
big screen Justice League: Mortal
project is on again?
For the time being it would seem though that the planned $200
million plus big-budget live-action movie featuring DC Comics’ best-known
superhero team featuring Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman amongst others
is quite dead.
Lately Warner Bros. just can’t get their
act together when it comes to their potentially lucrative superhero
franchises. The Batman
Begins reboot of that franchise is the sole exception, a lucky
accident almost – after all, this is a franchise which had to suffer Joel
Schumacher putting nipples on the bat suit!
Attempts at reviving the
Superman franchise also floundered
around for ten years before
Superman Returns finally made it to the screen in 2006. The movie did
okay-ish business and probably would have been profitable if it hasn’t
been for the millions the studio spent on the project while it was stuck
in what seemed to be indefinite production hell. (At one stage Nicolas
Cage was to star as a capeless Man of Steel, with Tim Burton directing.)
And don’t even mention the recent efforts by Joss Whedon to bring a Wonder
Woman movie to the big screen as well as a Flash
movie that just can’t seem to, well, move . . .
The latest victim of this vacillation is a big screen
Justice League movie. The Justice League is of course a superhero team
consisting of some of DC Comics’ best-known characters, namely Superman,
Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman and the Martian
Manhunter. This was of course the original line-up when the team first
made an appearance in issue # 28 of The Brave and the Bold back in 1960.
Since then, in typical comics fashion, the team roster were in constant
flux. Other notable superheroes include Green Arrow, Atom, Hawkman,
Black Canary, and Plastic Man amongst dozens of others.
Typically the League would fight off alien invasions or super-villain
teams.
Justice League: Mortal, as the film was titled,
seems to be just that: pretty much mortal. As in, it can die – and did.
In fact the project was doomed from the
start. First off, it ran into a literal shit storm when fans online
objected to the fact that actors from the existing
Batman and
Superman movies won’t be
reprising their roles in Justice League: Mortal. Nope, no Brandon
Routh or Christian Bale. Instead newcomers D.J. Cotrona would be Superman
and Armie Hammer would be Batman (see photos).
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(Click on images to enlarge) |
The rest of the cast would be newcomers too. Australian
supermodel and actress Megan Gale would be Wonder Woman (see photo),
American actor Adam Brody (Seth Cohen in teen drama The O.C.) would be the
Flash, US rapper Common will be Green Lantern and London-based Chilean
actor Santiago Cabrera (who was prophetic painter Isaac Mendez in Heroes)
as Aquaman. Sixty-year-old Australian actor Hugh Keays-Byrne was also cast
as Martian Manhunter.
Copies of an early screenplay by Kieran and Michele
Mulroney were also leaked and attracted negative reviews. Reports are
still vague on what exactly the plot would be though. A source on the
Internet Movie Database had it that the story involved Green Arrow, Green
Lantern, and others of the JLA who “must deal with the expulsion of Batman
and the death of Superman at the hands of the monstrous Doomsday.” Still
another source says that the movie’s plot revolved around “villainous
businessman Maxwell Lord and cyborgs called OMACs (One-Man Army Corps),
who can take over humans and turn them into killing machines.” In-between
all of this, the 1997 live action Justice League TV pilot (see photo) that
was so god-awful that they never even bothered to telecast it must have
been in the back of everybody’s minds all along as well . . .
Then
the film ran into delays because of the recent Writers Guild strike.
Australian director George Miller, who did the
Mad Max movies and, um, Happy Feet, wanted to film the movie in
Fox studios in Australia, hoping to get a 40% tax rebate from the
Australian government in the process. It was not to be. Even though
Justice League: Mortal boasted an Aussie director and three Aussies in major
roles, it wasn’t Australian enough as far as the taxman was
concerned. Rumor then had it that despite Miller’s objections that the
production would be moved to Canada.
Next up were definite signs of mortality: the actors
were “let go” (the production was allowed to stall so that their contracts
would lapse) and producer Joel Silver announced that the project has been
“shelved” – Hollywoodese for cancelled. So Justice League: Mortal
won't happen, right?
Well, maybe. Considering the huge amounts of bucks that
Marvel is making from Iron Man and their
plans to bring The Avengers to life,
the chances are that - like Superman himself! – this is one idea that
probably won’t stay dead for long.
And comic book fans needn’t fear a
Justice League movie. Miller is a talented director
after all. Even Happy Feet was a lot darker than its reputation let
on. The idea of using animation processes similar to those used in
Beowulf would also be an
interesting creative choice for a comic book adaptation. (This idea has
been thrown around during the initial development of the project, but hasn’t been
confirmed or denied since then.)
The League may seem old-fashioned when compared to
newer, more “hip” superhero teams such as
Fantastic Four and
X-Men, but there has been several
successful adaptations of the material at hand over the
past decade or so. In fact we would recommend the below reading list for any
screenwriter tasked with writing a future Justice League movie:
They should also give the recent animated TV series
Justice League (2001-2004) and
Justice League Unlimited (2004-2006) a spin in their DVD players. It
was actually while watching season two of Justice League Unlimited with my
five-year-old daughter that I realised that many of the recent big screen
superhero movies were aimed at adults instead of kids. (After all, which
kid has the patience to sit through a 156 minutes long
Spider-man 3 movie?!) This is a
problem if we want to introduce future generations to the superhero comic
book characters we love so dearly and ensure a future for the comics
medium. What the hugely entertaining Justice League Unlimited
illustrated was that kids and their comic book geek parents can
actually sit down to watch something together, without the adults feeling
that their intelligence are being insulted and the kids without getting
bored.
So if you’re the type who feels that teaming up Batman
with other superheroes will “dilute” his character – then chill. A
Justice League movie is nothing to be afraid of. If you’re a Hollywood
exec: check for an open space in both Brandon Routh and Christian Bale’s
diaries, get your screenwriters to check out our handy reading list and
slash the budget. A Justice League movie will sell
loads of tickets and move a lot of lunchboxes . . .
(Plus, we start drooling at the mere thought of actress
Megan Gale in a Wonder Woman costume . . .)
UPDATE: Justice League: Mortal seems
pretty much dead right now. The disappointing box office of another group
of DC masked superheroes namely Watchmen also isn't likely to help.
by Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn and
Barry Kitson