A Watchmen movie may be the great impossible superhero-comics adaptation, but a Justice League movie looks like a close second. The very nature of the Justice League depends on a combination of metatextual and/or shared-universe conventions which, when streamlined for film, threaten to rob the group of its lofty status.
In fact, that status forecloses a lot of the typical superhero hooks. The Leaguers aren’t outcasts, misfits, students, teens (contemporary or futuristic), government agents, or family members. Instead, they’re a collection of disparate types: lonely aliens, otherworldly royals, space-cops, science heroes, highly-skilled humans, etc.Put more simply, the Justice League by definition exists only in relation to other titles and subgenres — but with movies, every putative franchise is a world unto itself. For most movies this isn’t a problem, because the character(s) can just be plopped into a real-world setting and play off it. Even a Justice Society movie could boast the high-concept tagline of “World War II superheroes.” With the Justice League, though, the “real world” backstory necessarily includes a superhero subculture for the League to sit atop. Otherwise, it’s just another collection of conflict-generating characters (the Rogue, the Square, the Outsider, the Brain, the Woman, etc.), marginally familiar to the general public, producing a film not unlike League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Apparently it’s cool to see these folks together, but it’s not clear why.
Of course, the initiated already know, or are at least curious. Indeed, every moving-picture incarnation of the League has rested on already-adapted characters. The “Superman/Aquaman Hour Of Adventure” featured other DC heroes in solo adventures, occasionally teaming up as the Justice League. It wasn’t much of a jump from there to ‘Super Friends,” especially since both shared narrator Ted Knight. More recently, Superman, Batman, the Flash, and the Green Lantern Corps were already part of the Timmverse before “Justice League”; and the “Smallville” League brought together characters who had each already worked with Clark. Only the unaired JLA TV pilot presented a League without these kinds of prior associations. Now, however, the Movie League will have to do just that.
I do think a Justice League movie could work, but it would have to be carefully constructed to present the appearance of a shared universe without going too heavy into the attendant backstory. The Incredibles did this fairly well, using short bursts of exposition and other anecdotes to suggest the superhero subculture, and also presenting a character (IncrediBoy/Syndrome) who wants to join this culture. (From what I understand, in the TV pilot, Ice was the “joiner.” I also feel compelled to mention Mystery Men, where the team comes together to save the Superman-analogue. In that sense, they were all joiners.) Rights issues notwithstanding, Green Arrow and the Atom could be the JLA movie’s joiners, with the original Leaguers seen initially only secondhand, from an onlooker’s perspective. Maybe the first scene of the movie could adapt either of the League’s “first” battles: fighting Appellaxians, or fighting Starro (as in The Brave and the Bold #28).
Still, because this approach would necessarily pick up after the League had formed, I doubt it would be popular. Inaugural superhero movies are all about using the origin to help the audience suspend its disbelief. Many times, that origin is tweaked so it produces both the hero(es) and the villain(s). However, the Justice League concept eschews those commonalities. As all-stars, the Leaguers must by definition come from different teams.
By way of streamlining, though, let’s say the JLA movie starts with everyone at a Super-Secret Black-Budget Lab out in the desert somewhere, analyzing Abin Sur’s crashed spacecraft. Ray Palmer, Martin Stein, and John Jones are the lead scientists; Dinah Lance and Hal Jordan are Air Force officers; and Ron Raymond is a punk kid who gets caught on the base after a dare. You can picture the first act already; and I’d only suggest a few plot points. Ray’s size-changing gear is already in use exploring the spaceship. Dinah’s sonic scream is optional (does she get it in an accident? is it natural?). Finally, J’Onn is on the lookout for White Martians. They are, naturally, the eventual villains of the piece, wanting to identify the new Green Lantern so one can take his form and claim the ring. (They could be Manhunters too, I suppose, but the Martians let the audience wonder about J’Onn’s loyalties.)
That’s not an unreasonable take on the characters, even if it does smack of Supreme Power-style interconnectedness, but really, doesn’t it sound like the Fantastic Four? More specifically, doesn’t it sound like the FF movie, with a singular interaction between Science and Outer Space giving everyone powers? How about this twist: they’re all presumed dead — or, better yet, GL’s ring erases every computer record identifying each of them to the government — and they have to take new (but familiar) civilian identities. It might work, but it’s a lot of gymnastics in the service of making things simple. The same would apply if the White Martians (yes, I like them; lots of possibilities) were somehow responsible for a metagene facilitating the Leaguers’ powers. That kind of single source makes them X-Men, or Heroes.
A Justice League movie doesn’t need those kinds of explanations, because the concept doesn’t require them. It’s deceptively simple on its own terms: there are lots of superheroes, and these are the best. The challenge lies in convincing the audience of that.
March 8th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
There are no ‘rights’ issues for any of these characters, they are all WB characters that will appear in a WB movie. The fact that Green Arrow is on Smallville would not in any way inhibit his inclusion into the movie.
As for the Justice League NOT having the Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, or even the Flash… well then whats the point? I don’t see how those characters wouldn’t be included, their own movies or not.
March 8th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
They might all be part of the Warner Bros. empire, but different parts of the empire might have certain claims on each of them. I think “Smallville” has wanted to use Bruce Wayne and (maybe) Wonder Woman for a long time, but couldn’t because those characters belonged to different producers. I believe that’s why the show also had to call Bart Allen “Impulse,” because it didn’t have the rights to the Flash name.
Obviously this hasn’t prevented the characters from appearing together in the animated series, but I think it is an issue for the live-action shows.
However, since the “Smallville” producers also produced “Birds Of Prey” and the unaired Aquaman show, and were developing a “Starman” show, I imagine they’d have a leg up on including any of those characters. They obviously haven’t had a problem with Aquaman, and I bet they could use Black Canary on “Smallville” too. With regard to the Batman characters, though, it probably gets more complicated.
March 8th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
It’s not a ‘rights’ issue within WB, it’s a ‘dilution’ issue. They want to limit multiple versions of the same characters running around in different franchises/mediums. They don’t want to have the teenaged ‘Flash’ that appears in a couple episodes of Smallvile, and then have a completely different actor and origin for a ‘Flash’ movie.
A similar style of thinking is behind the movement in certain comic books to make them resemble the TV shows/movies (i.e. organic web-shooters; the new Phantom Zone criminals; the ‘Up, Up, and Away’ arc; the ‘Back in Black’ arc, etc.)
March 8th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
From the ‘I Know This Could Never Happen’ department:
It might work if they had the movie JLA composed of a Brandon Routh Superman, a Christian Bale Batman, a John Wesley Shipp Flash, the Black Canary from the Birds of Prey TV show, the Green Arrow and Martian Manhunter characters from Smallville, the Aquaman character from the failed pilot… am I forgetting anybody? The only ones they’d need to introduce would be Green Lantern and Wonder Woman, and that’s manageable. For the rest, they could make it part of the promotion of the movie, to have a big rerelease of the Flash and BoP series… maybe do a compilation DVD of Flash, BoP, Smallville and Aquaman episodes…
March 8th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
What about Dina “Oracle” Meyer from “Birds Of Prey,” not to mention the Shaquille O’Neal Steel?
John Wesley Shipp is getting into Jay Garrick territory (he’s 51), but Lori Loughlin could still work as Black Canary, and I’d love to see her paired up with the Green Arrow from “Smallville.” Here’s to you, Mrs. Drake-Lance!
March 8th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
There you go.
Actually, ideally the movie could work like this.
First we get a good Wonder Woman movie.
Then we get a Justice League movie, featuring Routh as Superman, Bale as Batman, and whoever as Wonder Woman. And that’s all. Really, how many characters can you really focus on properly in an action movie? Maybe you can introduce a fourth character, a Green Lantern or Flash or Martian Manhunter or someone. But for more than that I think you’d have to wait for the sequels.
March 8th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
I pretty much agree with Tom’s assessment here. It’s one thing to draw all of the characters into the same comic book panel, and another thing entirely to assemble it in reality…something I would maintain is virtually impossible. Oh, it could be done, but not in a way that did justice (no pun intended) to the characters or be any kind of coherent and (most important to the studio) money-making production.
Just thinking of the special effects budget for five to seven superheroes (most of whom would have budget-busting super powers to engineer), that alone is enough to sink the effort…not to mention all of the WB legal issues, franchise conflicts, big egos of established tent-pole properties, finding a director, and…as Tom pointed out…trying to sell it to the public. I think comic book fans sometimes assume that the general public shares their interest in seeing “Character A” meet “Character B” to share an adventure. Some may….but it’s an assumption movie studios would be wise to avoid.
March 8th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Watchmen - would work as a cartoon.
March 8th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
You can’t have a Smallville Green Arrow and the Aquaman from the Auqaman pilot because they are played by the same actor. Plus he’s not really all that good and doesn’t really look like either of the guys he’s supposed to look like. He’s fine for television but on the big screen he’s going to look overly campy.
Plus he doesn’t have a beard. Oliver Queen needs a beard. Smallville has had Martian Manhunter on in small parts before too.
March 8th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
I was resisting the inevitable casting comments, but …
Better Green Arrow: Owen Wilson, or Josh “Sawyer” Holloway?
March 8th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Owen Wilson for Green Arrow. He does smarmy charm good.
I remember an issue of Wizard where they did a casting call for a JLA movie and had Bruce Campbell as Superman. Dunno why that stuck with me, just seemed funny at the time.
March 8th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
I mentioned this somewhere else and people kind of blew me off. Superhero comics are an amalgous genre and in a JLA movie you have to find a way to have a whole bunch of those different pieces (masked crime-fighter, alien hero, Cosmic cop, Amazon warrior, etc) come together. Or, you can find a way to just say “there are lots of superheroes and these are the top team” and let it go from there. They’d still need a viewpoint character, though. I’d go with Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner) but that’s me.
Oh, and for the record, the unaired JLA pilot had its own hook. They were working from the Giffen League (rather loosely, I’ll admit), so they basically used the premise that super-heroes are regular people with regular human flaws and problems. However, instead of what amounted to a workplace comedy in the actual Giffen books, it was more or less Friends with superpowers. (Yes, I have actually watched it).
March 10th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
I agree that the basic hook of a League movie would be to bring together the actors and characters whole-cloth from their individual franchises (Batman Begins, Superman Returns, the mooted Wonder Woman) including key supporting cast members etc. It would be the Mother of All Crossovers.
For best results, bring in an established writer from the JLA comics to consult on the plot, ie who is the villian, how does the story breakdown, then let the Hollywood guys fill in the details. As long as its not Meltzer.