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Justice League movie in the works


MisterPL

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Variety is reporting that WB has hired Will Beall (most notably a story editor on TV's "Castle") to write a Justice League script.

Looks like Marvel's The Avengers has gotten WB execs to put this project on the front burner, years after development of George Miller's Justice League Mortal film came to a grinding halt just days before shooting was to commence.

I'd feel a lot better if this didn't seem like a "ME, TOO!" project that will likely be rushed into production and ruined. If they want a shared, live-action cinemaverse for their superheroes, maybe they'll use next summer's Man of Steel as an appropriate launching pad. I can see them treating Green Lantern's Hal Jordan like a bastard child just because of how poorly the solo film performed. Maybe he'll be the Hulk of the group in that context.

WB talked about "reinventing" the Batman franchise after TDKR but WITH Nolan as executive producer. If he's successful at shepherding Superman to the silver screen, maybe he'll be tapped for JL as well and end up DC's Avi Arad/Kevin Feige.

Speaking of the Emerald Knight, screenwriter Michael Goldenberg is working on a Wonder Woman draft. That's right; one of the guys who brought us the disappointing Green Lantern is tackling the Amazing Amazon. You might recall that Joss Whedon – the guy who created another female powerhouse and had a pretty good film released last May – had a Wonder Woman script rejected by WB a few years back. But yeah, let's go with the GL guy.

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They also said that the script will be dark and gritty. I can imagine it:

Batman to superman:you are the symbol of hope,I'll never be. I'm the hero this city needs but not the one it deserves and I'm also not the hero this world needs but what this world uhm... Can I re read the script?

Edited by Kostisfire
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They are going to crash this train. This reeks of a "me too" move, and they've entirely failed to lay the groundwork for it. The Avengers didn't just happen – it was the culmination of half a decade of planning and setup in other movies that were well done and well received on their own. None of that exists for JL. The Dark Knight movies stand on their own, and wouldn't feel like they fit with other stuff. Green Lantern was a major misfire, and I guess we'll see with Superman.

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Awful news. No lead up, no care for individual characters, and the Castle writer? Really?? If you're going to use anything from Castle, recast GL with Fillion for Christ's sake.

Dark Knight will have just ended. No time to get another Batman out, audiences won't get why he's so different.

Man of Steel exists in his own world, as pointed out by Nolan. This can change but i'm sure he wasn't written for a team.

Wonder Woman needs her own film to explain her. She's complex. (Johns totally fucked her up with her intro into JL)

GL needs to be rebooted immediately. I want to forget it ever happened.

Aquaman is like Wonder Woman. Too mythological and complex. These two are DC's Thor and need build-up for people to care.

Flash i could see being the Hawkeye. Shoo-horn him in, give him some slight development, then hopefully give him a spin-off. He's the easiest to fit in.

That leaves one last spot, likely for Cyborg so DC can play up the "We aren't racists! Look at out black hero!! GAY GL!!!" card.

Considering this whole project is just "let's cash in on Avengers" i am very disappointed. Quality comes first.

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WB has such a bad record with their movies, its hard to be optimistic. I still have my fingers crossed that TDKR is even half as good as TDK.

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Awful news. No lead up, no care for individual characters, and the Castle writer? Really?? If you're going to use anything from Castle, recast GL with Fillion for Christ's sake.

Dark Knight will have just ended. No time to get another Batman out, audiences won't get why he's so different.

Man of Steel exists in his own world, as pointed out by Nolan. This can change but i'm sure he wasn't written for a team.

Wonder Woman needs her own film to explain her. She's complex. (Johns totally fucked her up with her intro into JL)

GL needs to be rebooted immediately. I want to forget it ever happened.

Aquaman is like Wonder Woman. Too mythological and complex. These two are DC's Thor and need build-up for people to care.

Flash i could see being the Hawkeye. Shoo-horn him in, give him some slight development, then hopefully give him a spin-off. He's the easiest to fit in.

That leaves one last spot, likely for Cyborg so DC can play up the "We aren't racists! Look at out black hero!! GAY GL!!!" card.

Considering this whole project is just "let's cash in on Avengers" i am very disappointed. Quality comes first.

Or they could follow the route of the cartoon and replace Hal Jordan with John Stewart.

WB has such a bad record with their movies, its hard to be optimistic. I still have my fingers crossed that TDKR is even half as good as TDK.

I dunno, I'm pretty optimistic about TDKR.

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Yeah, I'm optimistic about TDKR. Less so about The Man of Steel. Of course, Green Lantern was just absolute garbage (which is a major shame because the non-human GLs were all very well cast). And there's been no effort to establish a cohesive universe, and quite honestly, I just don't think the Nolan/Bale Batman would fit in with the Justice League. There is nothing organic about the Marvel movie universe, but it has been planned and executed so well that it certainly feels natural. I'm worried that a JL movie at this point would feel forced and may actually go against what's been set up in each of the earlier films. Kind of afraid it'll end up feeling like the previous Bat film franchise- disjointed and without character and charm.

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As disappointing as Green Lantern was, I wouldn't mind if they simply treated it as the franchise's Star Trek: The Motion Picture and moved forward. Reduce the next budget by having Kilowog disguised as Michael Clarke Duncan training John Stewart on Earth while Hal is off in space tracking down Sinestro before he can recruit a corps of his own. WB had already cast Common as Stewart for Justice League Mortal anyway.

I'm more optimistic about Man of Steel than I was Superman Returns if only because this film isn't claiming to be a "loose sequel" to Donner's work. That said, I was hoping for antagonists new to the big screen rather than Phantom Zone criminals but for some reason, Nolan's involvement keeps me positive. I remember watching Watchmen thinking that Snyder's visual style would lend itself well to a Batman film so this could be the next best thing. I expect anyone pining for truly epic, super-powered fisticuffs should walk out of the theatre sated.

Whether these two franchises dovetail into a JL film remains to be seen. There's certainly time for a Marvel-style, end-of-the-credits meeting between Clark and Hal. Reynolds is still under his three-picture contract. Maybe he'd be better received as a team player with the League than in a solo franchise. Then again, WB's previous position was that they could have two different live-action versions of these characters on the big screen so it's possible they'd recast regardless of how well MOS performs.

As for TDKR, with a running time of 2 hours 45 minutes, I'm training my bladder now.

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I remember watching Watchmen thinking that Snyder's visual style would lend itself well to a Batman film so this could be the next best thing.

I still hold out hope that if ‘Man of Steel’ succeeds WB will follow up TDKR with Synder directing TDKR (er... following up ‘Dark Knight Rises’ with ‘Dark Knight Returns’) like he and Frank Miller have wanted to make since 300. (and with all the DKR merch DC is pushing lately, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s a move on their table) I think the only hitch in the plan is that the current movie series is called “Dark Knight” and there’s already a “Batman Returns” movie so it’s going to hard to convince people this is a new stand alone film and not a Four-quel cash-in with a new director.

On actual topic:

I think a JL movie COULD work without every league member having a stand alone film... no one thought it was weird only Batman and Superman had stand alone cartoons before JLU and people seemed to accept that just fine.

The only problem is, I don’t trust DC to do it right. Marvel COULD have started with the Avengers too but instead took a bold risk to make each major character their own film first so we’d LIKE each character on their own, half the fun of Avengers was seeing the CHARACTERS interact, not just seeing Four Icons (and Black Widow and Hawkeye) team up... like how Freddy Vs Jason was more fun then either Alien Vs Predator because Freddy and Jason brought their existing personas to the table where the Xenomorph and Yautja just brought being familiar looking to the franchise.

now you’re saying “but Freddy Vs Jason had a decent plot... well, acutally no, what I meant by that was for a horror film it was okay... and AvP was crap!” well, look at GL, he fought a space cloud AFTER the Fantastic Four were mercilessly mocked on the internet for fighting a space cloud! That’s a level of not caring about what people want in a movie and just shoving something out the door we’re going to get from JL:the movie a checklist of heroes (although they’ll probably hold off one or two you’d expect like Aquaman ‘for the sequel!’ like why GL couldn’t fight anyone good or recognizable) and a generic villain.

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Really DC needs to slow down and think out a 5 year plan like Marvel, not pop a massice boner from the Avengers and say "WE SEX MONEY NOW!"

WB has always been really bad at big picture franchises. The Matrix sequels were pitched as 1 sequel, 1 prequel. Instead we got the animatrix and 2 sequels.

WB also brought us the Police Academy movies, one doofy comedy after another. Besides Harry Potter, and soon to be tied with batman, this is their most numerous franchise. I'm not joking.

They're very much a studio that wants instant satisfaction. They're not very good at growing a brand.

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It amazes me that WB can put out really quality DC animated movies, yet can't do the same with real life people. On the other hand, Marvel makes amazing movies and mediocre animated movies. This is why we need an Amalgam Universe animated movie that leads into an Amalgam live action film. Of course, both companies would work equally to make sure that both sucked as bad as the original idea did.

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Honestly, I dunno how I feel about this. I know we'd get the obligatory "Superman and Batman fights but Batman pulls out some Bat-Dues Ex Machina that turns Superman into his bitch" scene that is turning me more and more against Batman, yadda yadda yadda "that British guy name Peter aka pawcanada hates Batman and Kang" and so forth. Honestly, I'd rather see some good and interesting movies with DC heroes I like first, i.e. Superman, Green Lantern, Aquaman and the Flash before we get a JLA movie. This is what I liked about the Marvel movieverse; everything was developed outside of Avengers and then it all came together.

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WB will continue to fail even until they sop being embarassed by their own properties. Nolan isn't the answer- each of his characters exist in their own universe where even the concept of costumes heroes does not exist until the title character puts on a suit. Kind of hard for them to team up. They will continue to flounder in the live action arena until they quit trying to reinvent their own wheels and just tell good stories with these already well loved characters.

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  • 4 years later...

Tragic news. Due to his daughter's suicide, director Zack Snyder is stepping down from his duties on Justice League. He's handing reins over to the other guy mentioned at the beginning of this thread, Joss Whedon.

 

Regardless of how you feel about him as a filmmaker, no one should have to bury their kid. I'm glad the project is in capable hands so the Snyders can concentrate their energy on their family.

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I admit I wanted him off the project, but not like this. Damn, man. I'll say this much, considering his daughter died in march I'm very impressed that he continued production for two months like he did. His tenacity and passion is admirable, but I'm also glad to see his priorities and energies focused in the right place. Somehow, despite the fact that I hate all but one of his movies, this made me respect the guy more. 

Props to Whedon too for finishing the thing. His involvement likely won't have much effect on the final product, but at this point he's directed both the Avengers and the Justice League. The man has credentials that's for sure. 

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I have to wonder about the timeline on this.

 

News broke on March 31st that Whedon was in talks to direct a Batgirl movie for WB. I suspect that, shortly after Snyder's daughter's suicide, WB wanted a contingency plan and needed someone with Whedon's credentials to pick up wherever Snyder might leave off. It wouldn't surprise me if Whedon said, "Sure, I can step in but let me do a DC movie of my own."

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That does kind of sound like something WB and Whedon would do. 

All that aside, this news is really upsetting. I feel for the guy. Sure he's not the best director, but he certainly knows how to do action. I'm sure Whedon will be able to finish it up and that the movie will still bring in the revenue required for a sequel and to keep this thing going. 

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He may misrepresent preestablished characters & isn't the strongest storyteller, but he definitely didn't deserve to lose a child.

As someone who constantly battles depression, if you're struggling, please get help. Someone out there cares. PM me if you want. Don't let it get that bad. :(

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