The tragic sequence of events that lead to the death of Justice League Mortal is as epic as any fight the group ever had in their history. I will retell it, as I remember it.
At first, WB announced it was writing a movie about the Justice League, DC comics premier Superhero team. Since then I've learned to not take it very seriously that WB announce any movie. It was all very hush hush. We didn't know who was in it, what was the story or how would it affect the then incoming The Dark Knight as well as "The Man of Steel" the Superman Returns sequel we still don't know anything about. Nobody had anything much bad to say about it, except maybe how impossible to do it might be. Then again, they said that about Watchmen.
The plan was simple: Use Justice League to launch spinoffs featuring Flash, Wonderwoman, etc. Minimize the risk of these franchises that haven't had the exposure Batman has had it.
Then out of nowhere: BAM! Marvel announced their plans to release The Avengers. They would release solo movies for The Hulk, IronMan, Thor, and freaking Antman before leading to one mammoth of a crossover movie. Everyone's perception seemed to have changed overnight. Now, the ONLY way to do a crossover movie is to lead up to it with solo films. Now Warner was doing it "Backwards" and Marvel had the right idea. Never mind that Wonderwoman was more well known than Ironman and Antman combined. Never mind that Warner was unsuccessfull in releasing anything that isn't Batman or Superman or Vertigo stories(Constantin, V for Vendetta). Now, all of a sudden, everyone seems pissed that Warner isn't doing what Marvel announced they would do after Warner had already started!
Then casting rumors came out. Aparently the story would not be in casting continuity with either Batman Begins, nor Superman Returns. Because those movies where so open to a Justice League spinoff. This is where sites started entering the fray, spitting venom at the movie for casting "kids" when a) most of the rumored cast was in their late 20s and B)Routh would have been equally young if added to that group.
All of a sudden the movie, wich had Director George Miller attached to direct, started to make enemies out of every nerd group. Batman Begins fans felt that only Christian Bale should play Batman, and that the movie would cause Christopher Nolan to suddenly forgo millions of dollars for some sense of entitlement to a character. Superman Returns fans hated it because it didn't feature their precious Brandon Routh. Green Lantern/Hal Jordan fans felt that using Jon Stewart instead of Hal Jordan was unforgivable. A lot of them really hated that it was a stand alone thing that ignored what Marvel was doing. And a great many hated the fact that instead of proven celebrities and known names, young unproven actors where rumored.
But stop! Does any of that really make a good story featuring the greatest heroes in the universe any less entertaining? People harranging the movie because of their own personal fandoms, and not because of their feelings toward the movie itself makes no sense. But of course, we knew nothing of the story of the film. Or did we?
Script reviews started coming in each more outlandish than the next. It soon became obvious that no one really had the script. Unlike usual Hollywood standard, they where pretty secretive, even allegedly using special, unscannable papers and Superlimited copies. Still, it didn't stop many from saying that they'd read it, and it stunk. They didn't say WHAT sucked about it. The just thought if they said it with no base of knoweledge, stupid people would believe them.
Turns out, stupid people are stupid. So in the end, this movie had very few people in the fandom who where willing to back it up. Still, most of these enemies amounted amounted to a swarm of babies fighting a grown man: their basic tactic of crying could do little against a movie that was being fasttracked before an impending writers strike. But no amount of tracking was fast enough, and both the Screen actor's guild and problems with taxation in Australia, the films shooting location, finally sunk it under, as WB hit the reset button they seem to have to undo any progress any DC film without Batman may have made.
I'm not gonna say this movie was gonna be great. I am not that naive. What I WILL say, is that, if given a chance to exist, it could have been something really special. Something that shook WB out of the marrasm that they have about their B, C and even some A level comic properties. If it had been released, it could have disproven all the naysayers and fake scripts.
But here we are. 2009 and there is no Superman film in sight. Gonna take at least 3 years for a new Batman. We had Watchmen, but the fish wern't biting. There's Johna Hex, in case anyone else doesn't think sipernatural Western isn't more promising then the world's greatest heroes together. The only thing that might make any progress in the ol' DC farm is Green Lantern, wich hits two years in the future. So if you, dear reader, think a potentially bad Justice League this year is worst than a potentially bad Green Lantern in 2 years. But for me, I feel that watching WB try to fit their solo films into a cohesive crossover will be like watching a retarded person try to fit a square peg into a hole. Yes, the word is WB wants to try some kind of Marvel-like plan. Except I've never heard of Marvel periodically scrapping everything from the start.
Problem is, the Marvel plan is a plan because they planned it. A similar plan with DC doesn't work because they didn't plan for it. Nolan follows whatever direction he wants with the Batman franchise. Singer tried to follow, repeat, and at the same time ignore the previous Superman franchise. This two where never planned to coexist and as such, a Justice League film is best as it's own continuity. And a separate continuity requires separate actors. We're all adults, I assume, I think we can diferentiate between fiction and reality, right?
Alas, the real problem with Justice League is that everyone wants to match their own selfish desires. This characters are alive in their own stories, and have their individual followings. Any Justice League would have to compromise for someone who hates Black Canary, or preffers Guy Gardner over Jon Steward, or who thinks Superman is way too powerful, to people who get indignant because America just HAS ti be in the title. It's inevitable. But for now, however, we are left with Justice for none.
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