Nothing seems to have dampened down the rumours flying around about the new Justice League film. A few more names are being banded around, but mainly its just the same bunch of joes as ever. The latest comments from George Miller, who was attending an Australia awards event, are buried in the Sydney Morning Herald‘s entertainment section. Apparently,

George Miller said his new film Justice League of America wasn’t affected by the recent writers’ strike in the US and is expected to start shooting in the new year, under a new name. However, Miller wouldn’t comment on casting, including rumours of Megan Gale joining the film.

So basically a standard “everything’s fine” on progress and “no comment” on casting – not that we’d expect him to say anything else.

The one snippet that does cause an eyebrow to rise is the “under a new name” one. I can imagine they dropping the “of America” for international sales reasons, but I just hope to hell that they don’t try to call it something like the “Superfriends”.

Rumours about the upcoming Justice League movie are not hard to come by, however accurate, verifiable details seem to be very few and far between. You won’t find me blogging on every “development” as a) I don’t have the time, b) I don’t have the inclination, and c) I just don’t believe 90% of what’s circulating. However, rumours are flying fast so I thought I’d run up a quick summery.

The movie is currently undergoing casting. There was a massive call in mid-October where director George Miller saw 35-40 actors and actresses. Aint’ It Cool News had a rumour that this was just for Wonder Woman and Flash actors with the Flash cast specifically young.

While we don’t know who was cast, if indeed a decision has been made, we certainly seem to have a solid idea of who attended the auditions. The smart money seems to be on a cast of relative unknown for an ensemble piece rather than a focus on any particular big name star. My guess is that the real contenders are keeping quiet and have been sworn to secrecy.

Superman

Voice From Krypton has a very nice interview with Gregory Noveck, DC’s Senior-VP Creative Affairs, whose job it is to coordinate DC’s presence in Hollywood and to manage the Company’s response to licensees’ activities. In the interview he comments that they’re looking for a late 20s Superman rather than a 19-year old as had been previously reported (Superman’s canonical age use to be given as 29). He also shot down the idea of casting one of the existing Clark Kent actors (Welling or Roath) as the JLA Superman saying that it better for to use different actors as it reduces creative conflicts between interpretations and keeps the brand identities unique.

Wonder Woman

The biggest clamour for casting details is about who has been seen interviewing for the Wonder Woman position. (This of course has nothing to do with a lot of us geeks wanting an excuse to post up pictures of pretty girls.) The list of names banded around (in no order) includes Megan Gale, Minka Kelly, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Teresa Palmer, Shannyn Sossamon and Christina Milan. Jessica Beil was mentioned by Variety as in negotiations, but EW said she declined the role.

Its hard to judge the contenders on their acting ability as I’ve barely heard of any of them. However, based on looks alone, Gale and Kelly are the obvious ones you’d look at and go: Wonder Woman. Palmer has slightly more name recognition at the moment due to the current buzz about December Boys and that may be the swing factor. Okay, she does have blond hair, but that can be dyed.

The possibility that interests me the most is Sossamon. She doesn’t quite have the perfect, good girl image that the other ladies have, but she would stop Diana appearing too soft – remember Wonder Woman is as much a classical warrior as she is an ambassador of peace. The rumour is that she impressed the Mulroneys.

And on top of all that Joel Silver’s Wonder Woman film (the one Joss Whedon was once attached to) is officially on-hold until after Justice League has been released. The timing of the announcement is unfortunate as Warners were under examination for negative comments about female lead characters from a Production exec. They were even forced them to make an official rebuttal.

In the same Voices of Krypton interview mentioned above, Gerg Noveck, commented that the script was “phenomenal.” When asked if it really that good he answered:

It is, and that very rarely happens in Hollywood on a movie of this scale, and when it does you have no choice but to say, “We’d better catch lightning in a bottle and go!” All of a sudden, six months later, who knows what’s going to happen? You want to hold on to those writers, you’ve got massive interest from directors, you land someone like George Miller, so you go.

It certainly understandable that Warners would want to green light and prioritise a strong script given that DC has had so many false starts with their films lately and there are of course the looming issues with the Screen Writers Guilds. Noveck also commended the Mulroneys as character writers and said of the script.

The movie is action-packed, there’s a ton of stuff, but it’s not like the typical Hollywood blockbuster where it’s, like, “Oh, big action sequence. And why do we care?” I think part of the reason that so many responded so strongly to the script is because you just have these wonderful interactions between the characters. And this apart from the plot, which is strong and makes sense and tracks and people, when they see the movie, will be able to say, “Okay, I totally understand how all this can happen within this world.” I think part of the reason you go is that you want to see Superman and Batman have a conversation. And what is that conversation? You want to see how all of these men react when Wonder Woman first walks on screen. If you’re a normal, red-blooded male or even a Martian-blooded mail, what does it mean to be confronted by this goddess?

A second “leaked” script has now been reported by Moviehole. The first rumour plot involved a variant of the Batman OMAC/Brother Eye storyline from Infinite Crisis (always sounded too wish fulfilment to me), while the new rumour seems to suggest an opening and generational aspect that doesn’t necessarily preclude the first rumour.

Oz tax breaks

One of the factors that made Superman Returns marginally profitable was a series of tax breaks from the Australian Government – “an Australian film” can claim back a percentage of its production costs from the government. Well The Australian has a story where George Miller comments on the situation for upcoming films. There seems to move to make sure that the tax breaks are only given to real Australian films. Personally I find it hard to see how a US owned media giant producing a film about the Justice League of America could claim to be Australian even for tax reasons. (via Superhero Hype)

Other Crew

The IMDB is listing a few more crew members in place. Hugh Bateup and Damein Drew as listed as Art Directors. Drew role held that role on Superman Returns, and both of them worked on the Matrix franchise.

Green Lantern and Flash films

The separate Green Lantern and Flash proto-franchises have received a shot in the arm with the announcement of new directors with David Dobkin (Shanghai Knights, Wedding Crashers) for the Flash and Greg Berlanti for Green Lantern. The Flash is quoted as being a spin-off from Miller’s JLA, the Lantern film is more uncertain as the news I read made it look like an entirely separate franchise.

Berlanti is interesting as he was a co-creator of “Jack & Bobby”, the Kennedy drama series that was also co-created by Justice League comicbook writer Brad Meltzer. The Lantern film will by Marc Guggenheim and Michael Green and Berlanti will do the screenplay. They’re a very writer heavy and comicbook savvy mob so the script should be okay. Its just Berlanti’s relative inexperience as a director that could cause problems. Hal is expected to be the hero. My guess would be that it would mean a different GL (John?) in the JLA film.

Looks like the worst kept secret of the JLA movie had been confirmed, that Mad Max director George Miller will be directing the Kieran and Michele Mulroney scripted movie. Hard facts are still hard to come by and those names are the only ones that are currently confirmed.

However, it looks like this is going to be another Australian based movie, a la Superman Returns, as Miller is Australian and there are rumours of studio spacing being prepared down there. Ain’t It Cool News is reporting that Barrie Osborne, the producer of the Lord of the Rings series will produce. Could make for a really interesting combo.

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.

Running the DC Multimedia List often throws up questions from people who half remember one show or another, but the one project I get the most e-mails about is the now infamous Legends of the Superheroes two-parter. Now, I’ve never seen the show, but recently somebody posted the opening segement to YouTube. So take a gander below and decided for yourselves is Legends is really the worse superhero show ever made.

In other news I’ll be away at a conference on Star Formation in Visegrad, Hungary for the next week so the Link Blog won’t be undated until then. TTFN.

To celebrate the release of Superman Returns we asked for the best Superman spotting anecdote. Well the entries are in and a little later than planned we can now announce the results.

The first placed anecdote comes from Bill LaMonaca. Bill spotted the Man of Steel a week before Halloween, 1993 whilst out celebrating the impending marriage of his best friend. At one of the men’s clubs they visited “there was a guy dressed in full Superman costume – cape, blue tights, boots, the whole 9 yards.” Bill says the costumed patron “stayed by himself, didn’t speak- just stared all night”. (Makes you wonder if there wasn’t some red kryptonite involved.)

Our two runners up are Miguel Peru and Michael Rieker. Miguel was surprised to catch a glimpse of a priest’s S-shield tattoo in church and Michael kept being mistaken for Superman by the residents of Ensenada, Mexico.

The folks at Warner Brothers should be dispatching the prizes during the next few weeks. Congratulations to our winners and thank you to Brian Henderson at WB for organising the prizes.

In honour of the impending arrival of Superman Returns those wonderful folks at Warner Brothers have given us some cool prizes for our first prize competition here at the Captain’s Unofficial Justice League Homepage. I’ve been racking my brains trying to think of a unique angle for a competition until I spotted these sights at the Donnington Rock Festival:

Everybody, particularly non-comics fans, was saying that the strange balloon reminded them of the movie version of Superman’s rocketship. I also never thought I’d see Superman and Wonder Woman strolling joining the crowd at a Guns N’ Roses concert (which BTW was fantastic). So, we want to know the coolest or weirdest place in the real world that you’ve spotted Superman. Send us your stories, anecdotes, and if possible pictures. The first prize winner will get an official Superman Returns S-shield t-shirt and a Superman Returns poster. There’ll also be a couple of posters up for grabs as runners-up prizes.

Contest entries must be e-mailed to supermancontest@captain.custard.org before the end of the month (June 30th). The winners will be picked by our staff and notified via e-mail by July 2nd. Winners who did not include their shipping address (USA and Canada only, no PO Boxes allowed) with their entry must then notify us of it by July 4th so we can tell the Superman Returns promotions gang where to send the goodies. The winning stories will be posted here after the contest has closed.

It is now being widely reported (CNN, BBC) that Christopher Reeve has just died. For many of us Reeve was the definitive screen Superman. It wasn’t just the uncanny resemblance, it was his skill as an actor in showing us how Clark Kent could transform into Superman. His Clark Kent wasn’t just Superman in a suit – he was an actor playing an actor playing a role. It was also the seriousness which he brought to the role – never camp, never over the top – he acted like he believed he could fly and convinced an entire generation that he could fly. Our condolences to his friends and family.

In a piece by Michelle Kung in the latest Entertainment Weekly (the issue with the Star Wars cover) the designers of Sky Captain relate their influences.

Admitting he has thing for goggles, [Kevin] Conran [costume designer for Sky Captain] incorporated the eyewear into tht cape of baddie Mysterious Woman (Bai Ling). “There was this character in the silver age of comics called Dr. Mid-Nite. He was blind and always wore these goggles that lookered really cool.”

Conran also name checks Wally Wood and Al Williamson. They also have the picture of Mid-Nite from one of the DC Who’s Who. I’m constantly surprised by EW, somebody there really knows something about comics as even Bone gets reviewed in the book section.