Justice League, DC's answer to the Avengers eyes a director Options

[Mister R]

In other news some Justice League/Man of Steel rumours that are now picking up momentum.

The plan apparently is to make it explicitly clear that Man of Steel takes place in a universe populated by other heroes. There's talks of cameos from other heroes during the film potentially in person but more likely they would referenced. And actually given that Clark and Louis will presumably still be working at The Daily Planet (or something similar) that should be relatively easy to do and make sense – they can have reports on other heroes activities. It'll be interesting to see if they then overtly link that to Nolan's Batman films. You could in theory pick it up with the Daily Planet covering the aftermath of that and contending that its led to an explosion of superheroes looking to protect earth... its awkward but could work. They'll also have the chance to decide whether they want to reboot Lantern or not.

More interestingly there's talks that Wonder Woman will make an actual appearance in Man of Steel. Obviously this will depend on how quickly they can move forward with the casting for her although in theory I suppose they could shoot her scene(s) relatively close to the release date and drop them into the film. Alternatively they could 'do a Marvel' and have her pop up in a post-credit scene as part of set up for the Justice League.

[Astron]

This actually is sorta exciting.

[atticus]

This sounds good. The daily planet would be a good way to reference what heroes are doing elsewhere.
I do think Wonder Woman needs a film but DC will probably do the opposite of Marvel, having Justice League spawn individual character films.
If it does actually happen. I really look forward to seeing who's cast as Diana. I'm guessing Megan Gale has lost the contract.

[Mister R]

Megan Gale is indeed out.

The last time there was any real Wonder Woman momentum was after Drive when Nicolas Winding Refn made a series of public pitches to try and get Warner Bros. to hire him to write and direct a stand alone film. His pitch had Mad Men's Christina Hendricks as Wonder Woman and I still really like that suggestion although clearly Warner Bros. weren't so keen.

Back when Whedon was developing Wonder Woman they seemed to be leaning toward unknown/relative unknowns but who knows what they'll do this time around. Unknowns would certainly help to keep the cost of a Justice League film down.

They've certainly got some big casting decisions ahead of them though with only Superman (and maybe Green Lantern) cast heading into this they've got to find a new Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash and maybe a new Lantern and anyone else they're throwing in there. Not to mention potentially supporting cast for the likes of Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash etc. who can appear in stand alone projects further down the line.

[Astron]

As much as I love Christina she is simply too curvy/voluptuous/bootylicious/much woman/hump hump/bouncy/etc.
to be Wonder Woman.

[Mister R]

I'm not sure that's entirely true. Plus the fact that she's 'curvy' is part of the reason she'd be an awesome casting choice. Who really wants to see Megan Fox in anything as Wonder Woman? Because that's the kind of depressing direction they'll go. Last time they were casting Wonder Woman for a Justice League film they cast a model for God's sake.

This post has been edited by Mister R: Aug 15 2012, 20:25

[Astron]

Well I dunno.
Wonder Woman is supposed to have the perfect body and while Christina looks so stunning in the right clothes that I'd do her, a skin tight hint of nothing is not the right look for her imo...

[Mister R]

I dunno...



Plus it depends what costume they use.

[Jonnycondom]

Jesus, I think I actually just got a huge insight into what I'm missing out on by being a gayer. I just wanna get my face in there and motorboat those things.

[Mister R]

In a shocking development that absolutely nobody could have predicted it seems that the Justice League film has stalled.

There were reports a while back that Warner Bros. had decided to put the breaks on the project until after the release of Man of Steel (which made sense) so they could gauge interest in the DC universe and characters. However there's now reports that Will Beall's script for the film is quote 'terrible' and that has forced Warner Bros. to pull the plug on the project entirely and potentially start the whole process from the ground up. For those that might be interested Darkseid was apparently the central villain ushering in a major 'cosmic threat'. The big five, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash and Green Lantern, were the central heroes with various supporting heroes transitioned in and out of the team seemingly at random. Presumably that's a consequence of playing to various executives who all want different characters to appear and/or want to market as many Justice League action figures as possible.

[Jonnycondom]

I have absolutely no idea who DarkSeid is

[Mister R]

He's DC's Thanos essentially. Although Darkseid pre-dates Thanos by a few years so that's not really a fair description. Big all-power cosmic villain. Big part of Final Crisis which I assume is what they were riffing on for the Justice League film.

[ChelseaMan]

That's because Marvel have played he long game, where as DC just want to rush a reactionary competition film through.

Exactly, Disney/ Marvel spent a long time planning and setting up Avengers and it paid off big time. Iron Man hadn't always been the talisman Marvel character but RDJ was so charismatic and quirky inspired casting it worked. Thor and Capitain America were (weak) hits but still hits. The Incredible Hulk movies (Bana and Norton) may not have worked but there are the generation who watched TV series. The Marvel characters are also interesting, quirky character wheres the DC characters are self contained and harder to related to. Although Batman is a great dark character DC rely way too much on him, at the expense of other Superheroes inn DC universe. Superman can never be made into a 'dark' character its going to jar. JLA is going to flop or just be another Batman movie

This post has been edited by ChelseaMan: Feb 19 2013, 17:11

[Astron]

Norton worked just fine as Hulk imo.

This post has been edited by Astron: Feb 19 2013, 18:23

[daikaioshin]

The more I think about it the more I convince myself that a Justice League film will never work.

Darkseid would have been good, but problem is they'd be competing against Avengers for big cosmic enemy and it'd seem like even more of a rip off by potentially featuring the Apokolips wars with Steppenwolf doing a Loki thing.

Thing is, most of the DC heroes just can't translate to the big screen for a worldwide audience. They work in comic form... Look at Green Lantern. The CGI alone made it look cheap, as for the rest of it...

Why don't they get someone like Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison or James Robinson to write the script? They know the character and have plenty of experience with the storytelling. Not that Grant needs much more of an ego boost mind.

[ChelseaMan]

Aston, most Hulk fans when forced to chose preferred Bana. Norton was ok - a decent actor - but he's not compelling in this role. The script was not exactly brilliant, but I never found myself thinking, I would like to see Norton in a sequel.


Regardless of Bana and Norton, Ang Lee as awesome as he is was poor choice of director.

[Astron]

I thought it was a great film and alongside Thor & Iron Man 1 it's my favourite Avengers lead in Film.
I didn't like how Hulk was handled in the Avengers film itself and though I have nothing against Marc Ruffalo I'm not really excited about his Hulk movie.

@Daikai
I think DC films can work just as much as Marvel ones if they get good writers.
Green Lantern could have easily been as smart and witty as Iron Man for example but they came up with such a flat and uninspired story.
I'm glad though they are sticking with Ryan and making a sequel (if that rumour is true) since I can't hear the word reboot on more time and two established Franchises (alongside the new Superman) will make a JL movie much more likely.

This post has been edited by Astron: Feb 20 2013, 17:55

[ChelseaMan]

I am not saying a JL movie will be an out and out flop but would compete against the extremely successful the Avengers and therefore fail.

[Mister R]

The Green Lantern isn't an established franchise.

The problem DC have (and I think I've said this before) is that they refuse to embrace the reality of their characters when they transfer them to the screen. They become obsessed with turning them into movie franchises which results in them throwing lots of money at the screen and not much else. This was incredibly evident in the Green Lantern and Super Returns. Warner Bros. spent huge amounts of money on those films but at no point did anyone think to write a script or at least construct a coherent story (to this day I still have no idea what the actual plot for Superman Returns was).

As much as I loathe the films its worth remembering that Christopher Nolan's Batman films had a relatively low key beginning with Begins probably made for about half the budget of Lantern. It might be worth them dramatically cutting the budgets on these first DC films which might in turn force them to actually start focusing on making something half way decent. On that note I'd point out that Marvel made the first Iron Man, Thor and Captain America films and their first attempt at Hulk on around the same budget as Batman Begins and it worked out pretty well for them...

There's really no reason why they'd need to spend $200+ million on a Superman film. And absolutely no reason whatsoever that they should have spent even more than that on a Green Lantern film.

This post has been edited by Mister R: Feb 21 2013, 13:16

[Astron]

The Green Lantern isn't an established franchise.

No it isn't but if they make a better second part it will be, which is why I think it's worthwhile to stick with it rather than rebooting it yet again and start from scratch.