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The Net seems to be going crazy with JLA movie rumours at the moment, most of them appear to be complete sprock. It all started a couple of months ago when it was announced that Kieran Mulroney and Michele Mulroney had finished their script. Well Warner Brothers seem to have liked the script and for the last few weeks casting rumours have been flying around.
(No the poster isn’t real. It’s a concept Alex Ross did for Wizard ages ago, but I think its one of his better less-well-known images.)
Probably the best and most concise coverage I’ve seen of the state of play is a Newsarama blog post by Kevin Melrose. He points out an LA Time article, one of several they’ve run, which notes that the Directors and Screen Writers Guilds are currently in contract negotiations with the studios for an increased share of profits from new media exploitations of their work (online video, tv on mobile phones, etc). Their August 26th story “The clock is ticking for the next blockbusters” notes that
To beat the strike deadlines, the studios must start filming by March 1. While some high-profile projects are coming together quickly, other prominent movies — “JLA,” Will Ferrell’s “Land of the Lost,” Matt Damon’s “The Fighter,” Eddie Murphy’s “Fantasy Island” — must clear logistical, financial and political hurdles to move forward.
“The next four weeks are really critical,” says Paramount production chief Brad Weston. “Movies are coming together and falling apart by the day.”
They also mention that a number of directors have passed on the JLA project. It is vital that a director is in place during the next few weeks to finalise the script rewrites and guide casting otherwise the logistics of getting a film of this complexity launched before March 1st is increasingly remote. The obvious casting isn’t in place either as according to reports Bale isn’t interested and Tom Welling is contracted to Smallville – doesn’t necessarily stop his involvement, but hoops will have to be jumped through.
Brandon Routh could be cast, but that would use one of the films he’s contracted to Superman for and push back any start date of Superman: Man of Steel. However, we’ve seen rumours that Brian Singer and Mike Dougherty have a script and pitch that is petty advanced so they’re going to be racing the March 1st deadline themselves.
The Flash and Wonder Woman movies seem to be iterating through development hell so a JLA film is a smart research and development move for Warners. At the same time its going to be an expensive movie, biggest blockbuster-of-the-year type cash, to do right and I can’t see WB rushing in to invest that sort of money without due consideration. On a film like that they can afford whatever demands the directors or writers make as its a tiny part of the budget – the bigger threat is that the negotiations will go to a strike and all work on every project will come to a halt.
Seven months isn’t very long to finish all the pre-production work, design the sets, build them, scout for locations, finish casting, decide what CGI you want. Even if these films do start by March 1st I can still see them having a longer post-production phase than other films and a hell of a lot of pick ups to go back and film. “Start films by March 1″ may become an issue of technicality.
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