JLA Movie

August JL movie rumour round up

The last we heard about the Justice league movie was that Ben Affleck had been asked to read the script in view to WB signing him as a potential director. However, in an interview with Canadian news site 24hours he said:

I’m not working on the Justice League. One of the problems with entertainment web sites is that they need to fill pages, and that’s how rumours get started. [..] Justice League sounds really exciting, but it’s not something I’m working on.

Needless to say that “entertainment web sites” were soon on the hunt for another name to spin. Moviehole quickly stepped in with their own report that WB is only talking to a small circle of directors and that the current favourite is Wachowskis (of Matrix fame). Meanwhile the Superman Super Site is putting Brett Ratner forward as a name mentioned by their own source.

The only thing we still know is that WB have a script and that they are looking for a director. It sounds like WB have some sort of internal wishlist and each of these rumours is somebody hearing about a name on the list. Indeed Peter Georgiou has even claimed to have been told a list of 8 potential directors including “Affleck, Wachowskis, Ratner, Fleisher, McG, Snyder”.

In related matters, Batman-on-Film has reported another industry source saying that the Justice League film will be released before the reboot of the Christian Bale led Batman franchise (which was definitely concluded with Dark Knight Rises). Their analysis being that the Batman franchise will spin-out of the Justice League film.

Variety: WB talking to Ben Affleck about directing JL movie

Quoting Variety:

With Christopher Nolan declaring himself out of the running for “Justice League,” Warner Bros. has approached another of its go-to directors in Ben Affleck, who’s expected to discuss the project with studio brass in the coming days, multiple sources tell Variety.

Since guiding WB’s “The Town” to commercial success and critical acclaim from both sides of the camera, Affleck has ascended high on the studio’s list of filmmakers who can be trusted with prime properties. Thus far, Affleck is the only candidate who’s been sent Will Beall’s “Justice League” script, which the “Gangster Squad” scribe was hired to write last summer.

[...] Affleck has made it clear that he’s only interested in directing films in which he also stars — “The Town” and “Argo” are proof of that — so its likely that if this pairing ever came to fruition, he would don a suit of his own. DC Entertainment, Warner Bros. and Affleck’s reps declined to comment.

Not really sure what to make of this as I’m not really familiar with Affleck’s directing work. However, he had a poor experience when he played Daredevil and appeared to swear off superhero films, e.g., this MTV quote from 2009:

“One of the things about doing is that…” he began, then corrected himself. “No, that is not something I would want to do.”

I’m not even sure about which Justice Leaguer he could play. He’s got the classic Hollywood looks that mean he could be almost any of the Silver Age male Leaguers. We’ll see how this turns out.

Mark Millar on Justice League script

Mark Millar (of Millarworld and half a dozen movie deals fame) has commented on Will Beall’s Justice League script. Or at least on what he’s heard through a mutual friend…

A pal of mine is good friends with the new Justice League screenwriter [Will Beall] and said his take on the team is incredible. Very real-world and not at all what you might expect. WB has a chequered history with their superhero characters. They’re great with their boy wizards, but less consistent with their DC stable. But my chum said that this could be a thing of beauty and has been in the works for a little while now, not just an Avengers knock-off. Best of luck to them. The tidbits I heard sound quite dark and mature, which isn’t what I expected. But word on Gangster Squad is great too so I feel this is in really good hands.

The “in the works for a while” quotes jibes with a comment that Jeff Sneider, the Variety reporter who wrote the first article about Beall, made on Twitter immediately before the article appeared. He tweeted that he was:

About to reveal a secret that has been kept for nearly a year!

The “dark and mature” part also sounds like the tone of the last script with was said to have been partly based on the OMAC Project.

Movie rumours resurface

The Justice League movie rumours have surfaced again. Variety is reporting that WB’s latest wunderkind, writer Will Beall, has been tapped to provide a treatment for a League movie. That’s the sum total of the news on this one: Will Beall, Justice League script, not yet written. The massive success of Marvel’s Avengers is obviously a driver for this, but the success of the New 52′s efforts may also play into it.

Back in 2011, Jeff Robinov (WB President) confirmed that WB were still interested in the property, but that they were starting from scratch with a new script. Their choice of Beall would seem to be a no brainer as he wrote the soon to be released Gangster Squad, a retelling of the 1940s battle between the LA police with their gangsters — a group of colour good-guys fighting crime sounds like a fit the League.

A few years ago there was a lot of talk about an earlier Justice League movie, but that vanished at the eleventh hour due to a writer’s strike and the loss of Australian tax breaks. That film even got as far as casting actors, getting their stunt training going, and getting them fitted with costumes. (I’ve got a load of notes on it I should write-up sometime.)

You can keep track of the few details we have on our Justice League movie page.

Wondercon: Justice League movies

Coming out of Wondercon are titbits of info about two Justice League movies. The first is Justice League: Doom, a new direct-to-DVD animated feature announced by Bruce Timm for release in early 2012. It’s written by the late Dwayne McDuffie and is an adaptation of Mark Waid’s “Tower of Babel” – the story of Batman’s anti-JLA contingency plans being stolen by Ra’s Al Ghul.

The second one is the live action film that WB’s Robinov mentioned was in development for 2013. There had been speculation that it may tie into Chris Nolan’s Superman and Batman franchises and with the new Green Lantern franchise, but there have now been a statements refuting that. Ryan Reynolds (Hal Jordan in the new Green Lantern movie) was asked about his involvement with the Justice League project at the GL Movie Panel at Wondercon. Quoting from Comic Book Resources:

The only other newsworthy item concerned the recent talk of a ‘Justice League’ movie. Asked if he’s going to be involved, Reynolds replied, “It’s not something that anyone’s talked to me about.” Then he looked pointedly at [Geoff] Johns, who said to the crowd, “I can’t really talk much about ‘Justice League,’ except [to say that] it’s in development.”

This mirrored a short red-carpet Q&A that Superman reboot producer Zack Synder had given a few days earlier. He said that the Justice League film would be “it’s own thing, with its own Batman and it’s own Superman.”

(Man that Synder line has been refracted and reflected across almost the entire blogosphere. I was so sick of seeing it that I almost didn’t bother posting it, but the Ryan Reynolds quote makes it more of a story. )

Justice League movie in 2013 (updated)

The LA Times has a profile piece on Warners President Jeff Robinov and mentions that he may be planning a JLA movie. It describes how WB are planning to move from the Harry Potter series to a new series of DC based tent-pole movies. This starts with Green Lantern, but…

He’s then aiming to release new “Batman” and “Superman” films in 2012 and “Justice League,” a teaming of DC’s top heroes, in 2013.

We’ve heard this before. It was Robinov who back in 2007 announced that WB were going to make a JLA movie based on a script by Kieran and Michele Mulroney. At the time he described JLA as:

The Justice League of America has been a perennial favorite for generations of fans, and we believe their appeal to film audiences will be as strong and diverse as the characters themselves.

That attempt became a victim of an industrial dispute and DC Comics reorganisation into DC Entertainment. One assumes that the LA Times reference was checked with WB and wasn’t just a random reference to the last attempt.

UPDATED: LA Times writer Ben Fritz blogged more details about his chat with Robinov including the detail that it’s a new script they are looking at:

But Robinov said a new Justice League script is in the works. Also being written for Warner are scripts featuring the Flash and Wonder Woman, who could be spun off into their own movies after Justice League.

So they are looking to do a new film and it’s pencilled in for 2013, but they are still at the script stage. The Mulroney script was fast tracked in a spectacularly short time, but we’ll have to wait for more details on who the new screen writers are.

What do DC’s plans mean for a JLA movie

DC is reorganising (again) which has prompted a new round of press interviews  that touch on the possibility for a Justice League movie. What has effectively happened is that DC Entertainment (DCE) – WB’s new multimedia exploration and holding company – is being slowly wrapped around the traditional DC Comics publishing company. DC Comics remains in New York as the traditional comic-book print-publisher we all know and love, but it is now only a focused subsidiary of the larger DCE. Many of DCs non-print activities (digital publishing, movie development, etc) have been elevated to the parent division in Hollywood.

All that means that DCE have had to come up with a coherent plan for how they want to manage the torrent of intellectual property coming out of DC Comics. We’ve heard rumours that this plan existed and that’d it’d be announced in spectacular fashion, but that still seems some way off. Diane Nelson, the head of DCE, has commented to IGN about their overall approach to getting DC’s characters into movies and TV shows,

For example you might find that a Batman or Superman or Wonder Woman or… Green Lantern, though you could argue we have some work to do before Green Lantern has the same meaning to a broad audience that the property means to comic book fans… but in each of those, you might find there are different expansions into different forms of storytelling that can happen, not so much concurrently, but you can have a layered approach to how those properties can come out.

[...]

Equally I think it’s important to distinguish that… People make an assumption that we’re going to mirror Marvel’s strategy, for example with Avengers. We do have a very different attitude about how you build a content slate. And it isn’t necessarily about connecting those properties together to build into a single thing. We think we’ve got great stories and characters that will lend themselves to great standalone experiences, and that’s the way we’re focusing on it.

What she seems to be saying is that they are going to let the characteristics of the individual properties dictate how they are managed and exploited rather than use a single house style. That last paragraph doesn’t explicitly rule out the Avengers approach – the launching of several individual moves followed by a collective sequel – but it does down play it as a factor.

Remember Justice League is one of those properties just as Batman, Green Lantern, and Superman are. Maybe the best approach to a Justice League movie is just to do a Justice League movie without worrying about binding it in the baggage from a half-dozen other potential franchises.

6/7 JLA founders heading to the big screen

Warner Brothers have slowly been putting their comic book movies in order. The central engine for this was the creation last year of DC Entertainment as a division centred around DC Comics. Cinematical concisely describes the process since then:

This monolith of movie production was set up in order to usher in more DC character franchises, and one of their first steps was to “recall” all characters like Wonder Woman and The Flash who had been in ongoing development under producers like Joel Silver. There was apparently no unity in the way things were being done, and DC Entertainment was going to change that. Well, that was almost a year ago. We’ve only seen The Green Lantern become a reality, though Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer brought Superman and Batman 3 back into the game.

Well DCE have had their big strategy meeting some time ago and we’ve been waiting for “The Big Announcement” (TM) of their new movie strategy. When pushed on the timescale for this Geoff Johns, DCE creative mandarin,  told people to ask him again at this year’s San Diego convention. The big elephant in the room for Warners is the end of the Harry Potter franchise and there is logical  need for something to succeed it – a series of DC movie would fit that bill.

There had been a JLA film, Justice League Mortal, in the works prior to DCE’s formation. It was to have been directed by George Miller, produced by Dan Lin, and shot in Australia. It was fully cast and appeared to be close to filming. However, that stalled and Lin commented in December 2009 that…

You know, I thought that was the ultimate project. I was a fan-boy for me to work with all those characters together on a team and kind of the themes of that movie. That’s my dream. It’s on-hold right now as DC sorts out its strategy but as you’ve talked to Alan Horn and Jeff Robinov it seems like they’re building to Justice League instead of going with the team movie first and doing individual movies after that.

A few more details emerged about the 2011 strategy during an investor briefing by Warner Brothers chairman and CEO Barry Meyer. Heat Vision reports that the Green Lantern movie is scheduled for 17th June 2011 release date, a month before the last Harry Potter film. At the same event it was announced that a Green Lantern cartoon series based partially on the movie will launch in the fall of 2011.

Heat Vision further reports that,

Meyer particularly highlighted that DC Comics characters are key parts of Warner’s future, mentioning a July 20, 2012 release date for the latest Batman film by Christopher Nolan and a holiday season 2012 Superman film.

He added that the studio is also “nearing” a greenlight for a Flash movie, with films featuring Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Mad magazine characters also in development.

No mention of a specific Justice League film, but the announcement that six of the seven foundering members (minus J’onn J’onzz) have movies in production/development would seem to support the idea that DCE are going down the Avengers route – i.e. set up a series of films about each character and then bring them together in a single film.

I’d have thought that a 2012 Batman film is a fairly done deal, Nolan has the pipeline set for those and they’re a known quantity. A Superman film for the same year is interesting – the road to Superman: Returns was notoriously treacherous and long. What excites me is the 2013 could be the year of the Brave and the Bold we could see Green Lantern II and a Flash film.

Lots of JLA news quotes harking forward to 2010

In these last few days before Christmas there have been a few quotes about the Justice League and what 2010 has in store for them. Dan Didio addresses a number of JLA topics while speaking with Newsarama,  the JLA movie producer has commented on WB’s evolving strategy, and Mattel has announced that their JLU line will continue.

Justice League Mortal

The most widely discussed/re-tweeted story has been from Dan Lin, the producer of the in-stasis Justice League Mortal. Lin is also the producer of the current Sherlock Holmes film and Collider.com has had a running seven-part interview within him. During that interview Steve Weintraub for Collider asked Lim about JL Mortal.

Collider: You’re listed [as producer] also for Justice League Mortal.

Dan Lin: It’s the dream project.

Collider: Right, that’s why I’m sort of saving it. It’s like the punch at the end.

Dan Lin: Yeah. I mean it’s… I’ll say it’s the reason I started my company. You know, I thought that was the ultimate project. I was a fan-boy for me to work with all those characters together on a team and kind of the themes of that movie. That’s my dream. It’s on-hold right now as DC sorts out its strategy but as you’ve talked to Alan Horn and Jeff Robinov it seems like they’re building to Justice League instead of going with the team movie first and doing individual movies after that.

Collider: [...] are there certain superhero movies that you are interested in bringing to the screen….because I know they did a whole shakeup at Warner Brothers with people letting go of projects and other people coming onboard.

Dan Lin: Right. The only one right now as you probably know, they’re unveiling their DC strategy in January so you’ll hear more about that and they’ll speak about that in the new year. The only other one besides Justice League that I’m working on is the Suicide Squad.

This specific strategy shake-up had been mentioned by Charles Rovin, a director who had been linked with a potential Flash film. However, this is the first time that we’ve got a date for the announcement of the results.

The 1980s Justice League

Over at Newsarama Dan Didio, DC executive editor, is holding an end of year twenty-questions session. In the third installment, it was suggested that the 1980s JLA wasn’t doing to well out of the current DC Universe.

There is a lot of dicussion about if the 1980s Justice League had a target on their backs. I’m happy to tell you Bifford [the questioner] that the 80s JLA group is going to be back, and be back with a vengeance in 2010.

No clue about what that means, but the reference to a “target on their backs” makes it implicit that he’s talking about the Booster Gold and Blue Beetle Justice League. Over at Blog @ Newsarama Russ runs a bit of a conspiracy theory about this quote and DCU recent events.

Roy Harper's Injury in Cry for Justice.

In the same round of questions Didio was asked “what makes the maiming of red arrow significant when has friends who are capable of replacing his arm?” To which the answer was,

I really want to be very clear about this, this story is not just about replacing it with a cybernetic arm, if that is how the story turns out. And this is one of those cases where I want to remind people to read the story as it develops. There is so much emotion depth that is going on here. Roy is an archer first and foremost. To [..] lose his arm, his ability to do what he does best, is what really leaves the emotional scar on him, not the idea that he can replace it simply, but more importantly that he’s lost a part of himself, the part of him he considered the most valuable, that helped define him as a person. That’s what we’re going see develop.

Roy’s arc in the Justice League has been about stepping into the role of Red Arrow, in succeeding to his father’s place in the Justice League. He was already knock-backed by his break up with Kendra so this really does look like the lowest ebb for Roy – maybe even lower than his old drug habit.

The Price of the Justice League comic book

In the final round of questions Dan Didio was asked directly how DC could justify raising the price of JLA when the sales had declined.

[Pauses] Price increase is only the answer when we improve quality and quantity. We’ve been saying this a lot over the last couple of months, especially with so many people being price sensitive at the moment, but I wanted to reiterate it with this question. A 3.99 price point is something that is on books that have greater than the standard number of pages and will continue to be so. We will continue to hold the 2.99 price point as much as possible, but if we feel that the story warrants extra pages then unfortunately the price will increase with that, but hopefully you will get the feeling of value in that book.

With Justice League: so much that is going on with Justice League, with the fall of Green Arrow and the rise of Arsenal Justice League, will be playing prominently into that storyline. A lot of focus is on the team and how its being built there is a lot of focus on JLA throughout 2010.

Mattel JLU figures to continue in 2010

Miraculously Mattel’s of Justice League Unlimited figures are still running – over three years after the cartoon itself finished. On their Facebook Blog Mattel confirmed that the line will be continuing at Target,

JLU is going to continue in Spring 2010 at Target stores. We’ll have some new figures to reveal at Toy Fair in NY at out collector event on Feb. 14th. Stay tuned!

[...]

And as stated above, JLU will still be at Target stores in 2010. We have some great singles, 3 packs and 6 packs in store including many more fan demanded character, a return to Apokolips and a few out of the blue surprises we think JLU fans are going to love!

Superhero Times has the full quote.