At least three things can be gleaned from this Variety article about the state of Warner Bros. and the DC Comics properties:
1. The studio is riding high from the success of The Dark Knight and the results of those July strategy meetings.
2. Big changes are planned for how Warner Bros. develops its comic-book adaptations — changes that could be announced within the next month. It remains to be seen whether that means an executive specifically assigned to shepherd DC properties to the big screen, or something else entirely.
3. The Justice League movie, at least in its current form, appears to be really most sincerely dead.
What’s that? You want to read more about No. 3?
… Given that it unites Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Arrow, Aquaman and Martian Manhunter, the studio is trying to figure out how such a pic (cast with younger actors) would affect its existing Batman and Superman franchises — and whether the script respects how the characters play off each other in the DC universe.
To put it simply: the studio doesn’t want to piss off the Comic-Con contingent.
“We’re not off the notion of a Justice League,” [WB President of Production Jeff] Robinov says. “There’s a massive interest and knowledge in the comicbook industry and it takes time to sort of catch up and understand the characters and the history, where they’ve intersected with each other and what their worlds are. That’s part of the education that we’re going through.”
One thing studio executives don’t need to be taught is to stick with what works — and what works is Christopher Nolan at the helm of the Batman franchise. Warner Bros. is just waiting for the director to commit to a third film.
August 16th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Hopefully one of those lessons they learned was to not make “Supermax” or whatever that faux-Green Arrow movie was.
August 16th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Great news all the way around… There’s no need to rush a JL movie into theatres. In fact, I’m not entirely sure there’s any need to ever make one at all. Bring characters to the big screen on their own, and maybe make some logical cameos/team-ups along the way (I’d love to see a Green Lantern/Green Arrow team-up on screen someday). If those work, and there’s enough characters successfully esatablished, then a JL movie might be worth it. At that point, you can introduce a few more people, like Martian Manhunter or Aquaman.
Most importantly, establish these characters with more mature, experienced actors. Christian Bale, Robert Downey and even Tobey Maguire (who’s older than he looks) have proven that audiences both young and old will go for characters played by actors who don’t look like they’ve walked off the set of Disney Channel original movie.
A while back, some people suggested that Dan DiDio should leave the comics side of things and become the guy who “shepherds” the DC properites to the big screen. Since he comes from a TV background, I think that’s a great idea. I think Dan’s probably a really nice guy, and his love for comics is genuine, but I don’t care for the direction he’s taken DC. I don’t need to re-live the Silver Age, and I don’t care about weekly comics (that don’t interest me) getting out on time when the core monthly titles are plagued with problems, and so on. But, I think Dan might do a great job as DC/WB’s version of Avi Arad. Better than Arad himself has.
Best of all WB seems to understand that the Nolan’s intelligent, repsctful approach to Batman — using the source material as your blueprint — is the way to go.
August 16th, 2008 at 11:48 am
To Joey: Looks to me like “Super Max” is indeed a go… I think it could work, but I wouldn’t have started a Green Arrow series with that concept. I’d have waited to use it as a sequel. But who knows? In the right hands (and it’s hard to say if Goyer’s hands are “right” or not) it might be a real dark horse of a film and surprise us all. That said, Green Arrow needs to be seen as GREEN ARROW. Not sure that “Super Max” is going to give us that.
Mostly, I just want to see Nolan and Bale continue to make one or two more really special Batman movies, Superman rebooted in greater, more epic adventures for the times we live in (and no Super Kids), and hopefully excellent Wonder Woman and Green Lantern films too.
August 16th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Supermax is completely nearing production ATM from what I’ve been reading. It doesn’t appear to be bad, like Catwoman. It will probably be on par with Punisher or Punisher: War Zone. Maybe Ghost Rider, even. But it shouldn’t be another Catwoman.
August 16th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
JL movie instantly solved: Use the Bwahaha league. If Dr. Manhattan and Nite Owl are getting the feature film treatment, why not their original intended characters Captain Atom and Blue Beetle?
August 16th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Good news all around.
As for Super Max, I think there’s method to the madness. I’m betting WB wants to use it as a vehicle to establish the bad guys in future superhero flicks, thereby not only starting a GA franchise but strengthening their other properties too.
August 16th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Bob, I think the whole point was to have the marquee power of SUPERMAN, BATMAN and WONDER WOMAN, while potentially drumming up enough interest in the others to help greenlight more movies.
I just think it is a shame that Christian Bale is so dead-set against appearing in a JLA movie. Maybe the right script would sway him, but I doubt it. I can understand his hesitancy, though. Just the fan in me wants him to say, “oh, what the hell…pay me a few more million and let’s do this thing!”
August 16th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
I would be so tempted to do a JLI movie. It would certainly piss off at least a segment of the fans who expect the “proper” Justice League- Superman, Batman, et. al.- and that’s not an unfair expectation, but a comedic-but-sincere superhero adventure (as opposed to an outright parody) featuring a bunch of underdogs who don’t get along would work wonderfully as a movie.
August 17th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Big changes are planned for how Warner Bros. develops its comic-book adaptations
You’d think that the combination of Warner Bros. and the great characters of DC would almost automatically make for some great movies. I can’t imagine why they haven’t done better. Here’s hoping they’re figuring it out now.
August 17th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
I am so upset and dissapointed at dc comics they have sooo many characters (flash green lantern hawkman) that they could make a movie but they are sooo scared to make it or can’t imagine making it with out their 2 main characters, batman and superman.That’s why they’re making the JLA movie, they have superman and batman in the team.DC should admit that even though they great characters in their arsenal that could rival marvel,fans will never ever ever make a movie out of them.It does not matter that they could potentially make millions in revenue like the dark knight ,they don’t want to take that risk.
August 17th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Joe, youre premise is faulty. They’re NOT making the JLA movie. At least, not any time soon. Maybe someday, once they’ve gotten more of their characters established on the big screen (sort of following the very approach Marvel is taking). At least, that’s what I gather from all of this.
Cut WB/DC some slack here. They’ve made two awesome, intelligent movies in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. I’d argue they also nailed it pretty much perfectly with (the Vertigo title) V For Vendetta, and Watchmen looks like it could be great. Now the WB brass are apparently talking to DC writers like Johns and Morrison (see the earlier blog article about their recent summit) discussing how they might reboot Superman. HOORAY!
The Green Lantern script is apparently going well (there’s articles about that all over the internets), and Green Arrow/”Super Max” (for better or worse) is apparently going to happen. It’s looking to me like WB is taking their DC line pretty damned seriously.
Let’s give them some time to develop good scripts, good casting, and good movies along the same lines as BB and TDK. No need to rush potential garbage like that “JLA 90210″ script into production. Honestly, I think this is a good thing.
August 17th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Sorry, I meant “your” and not “you’re.” I do know the difference.