IESB has an interesting article about the state of the Justice League movie. It appears as though the first draft of the script has been turned in – something we’ve already reported here – and Warner Bros. is hoping the film will be a launching point for The Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, and The Flash, all of which have been floundering in production hell as stand alone movies.
When do the powers-that-be want to start production on Justice League? Apparently, as soon as the first quarter of 2008, that’s right, WB sources have informed the IESB that execs behind the Justice League of America want it to be in production as early as February/March 2008 to be ready for a summer of 2009 release.
This is also around the time the second Routh Superman installment is set to begin, which brings into question if Brandon will return in the blue and red tights. According to the article, Christian Bale (Batman) and Brandon Routh (Superman) are both signed for three picture deals, and one of them could be an esemble piece.
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The idea of this movie really excites me, until I remember all the bad movies about DC Comics characters. I still shudder just from the image at the top of the article from that awful JLA Pilot (an overweight Charles Emerson Winchester III as the Martian Manhunter? Tell me that casting wasn’t the result of either complete ignorance of the subject-matter or someone’s heavy drug use!).
I think that if this ruins the chances of a third Bale Batman film it’ll be horrible. Superman Returns 2 I can live without, but that would just be dire. Ugh.
I really don’t understand how you can inject the Bale-Batman into a movie like this…. Nolan created a world that was entirely non-fantastical in “Batman Begins.” There are essentially no superpowers. TDK seems to be shaping the same way. Then suddenly you have Green Latern making giant hammers and animal cages from his ring? That would just seem confusing.
The only team superhero movie that’s worked is X-Men and those were characters who are known as team-based, as X-men. An “all-star” superhero movie like JLA or Avengers seems like it would be hard to pull off because of the compeating visions of the individual movies (Avengers might be able to work around this since their solo movies will be made with an eye towards a team-up).
It just seems that once you have heroes teaming up, individual hero movies seem less important. A JLA movie could be fun in an action/Transformers sense, but it would entirely clash with the (intriguing) Nolan-Batman vision if Bale is in it.
“I really don’t understand how you can inject the Bale-Batman into a movie like this…. Nolan created a world that was entirely non-fantastical in “Batman Begins.” There are essentially no superpowers. TDK seems to be shaping the same way. Then suddenly you have Green Latern making giant hammers and animal cages from his ring? That would just seem confusing.”
Could be easily resolved with a throwaway scene in one of the next two movies. Alfred reading a paper about Superman or Green Lantern, commenting to Bruce about them. Bruce says he’s aware of them and keeping an eye on them, but he’s too busy in Gotham to really pay attention. Boom. Instant DCU.
Well I think it could still work if you tone down certain things like Green Lantern and his creating helicopter propellers from his ring to fly (i.e. the one from the above pilot JLA). Stick with the DCAU style somewhat. Early on GL would just created beams and shields instead of creating boxing gloves and such (hand held melee weapons would look okay in a live action film). Also, I think the whole weakness to yellow is rather ridiculous. Maybe they could do it as a weakness to some form of energy that just happens to be yellow instead.
It would also help if we stick with Batman’s point of view for the most part to keep things more realistic. We mostly follow him on his own investigations with perhaps a pairing with the Flash.