Following the announcement that he would co-write and direct the movie version of Green Lantern, Greg Berlanti gave an interview to The Hollywood Reporter in which he shared his enthusiasm regarding the project and why the timing for it couldn't be more perfect. "To me, this was on the last great comic book movie that hasn't been made," said Berlanti. "It was a comic book with a real mythology that you would see in a lot of the space operas and the sci-fi books. The best part about it, anybody can be become one of the Green Lanterns because anyone can end up with that ring."
That ring, actually, and what can be done with it was one of the reasons that it was believed that until now Green Lantern couldn't be brought to life without looking laughable.
"The danger and the fear from a lot of people is that it would be silly," Berlanti admitted to THR. "In these post-Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings days, it's not any more fantastical than that. It's taken movies like that to make it feel as if a Green Lantern film is possible."
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October 2007
October 30, 2007
October 28, 2007
FROM THE WATCHTOWER: JUSTICE LEAGUE SPINOFFS IN THE WORKS?
One of the reported reasons that Warner Bros. has thrown its corporate weight behind Justice League the way that it has is because the studio feels like it serves as the perfect means to introduce audiences to characters beyond Superman and Batman, so that they can star in their own films. For projects such as long-gestating Wonder Woman and The Flash, this could be good news. Most interesting of all is that it seems Warners isn't even waiting for Justice League to go into production, let alone reach theatres, before putting individual hero projects into development.
Earlier today, MTV announced movement on The Flash, with Wedding Crashers and Fred Claus director David Dobkin coming aboard. "Dobkin’s film won’t be the character’s first appearance in cinemas, of course, with the Flash a major part of the upcoming Justice League of America film," notes MTV. "But while fans wait for JLA story and casting announcements with bated breath, Dobkin can’t help but hold his – confirming that his movie will exist in the same universe as the upcoming flick as a direct spin-off. Which made his next comment all the more revelatory: Asked which version of the Flash would be the hero of his flick, Dobkin didn’t hesitate. 'Wally West,' he said." Which, of course, confirms the notion that Barry Allen's Flash will die in JL, and be replaced by Wally West. Added MTV, "Asked about his vision for the Flash, Dobkin teased us with a somewhat melancholy tagline: 'You can’t outrun yourself.'"
This evening, the news got even more interesting with Variety's announcement that Green Lantern has gone into development. Noted the trade, "Warner Bros. has set Greg Berlanti to direct Green Lantern, a live-action take on the DC Comics superhero. Berlanti will write the script with Marc Guggenheim and Michael Green. Donald De Line will produce; Andrew Haas is exec producer. Berlanti hopes to make the jump to big-budget fantasy fare after serving as writer and exec producer on character-driven TV series Dirty Sexy Money, Brothers & Sisters, Everwood, Jack & Bobby and Dawson's Creek. He previously directed 2000 feature The Broken Hearts Club... Warner Bros. and DC Comics assigned the project to De Line, who is currently in Morocco shooting Body of Lies, the Ridley Scott-directed WB drama that stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe. Guggenheim, who works with Berlanti as a writer-producer on Brothers & Sisters, wrote the Marvel comicbooks Amazing Spider-Man, Wolverine and Blade. Green, the Heroes co-exec producer who worked with Berlanti on Everwood and Jack & Bobby, wrote the DC Comics title Superman/Batman and was a writer-producer on Smallville."
The real question is whether or not this film will focus on Hal Jordan or, as reportedly is the case in Justice League, John Stewart (rumored to be played by the rapper Common). One early rumor was that Jordan would appear in the film to pass the ring on to Stewart. If true, it means the Green Lantern film could be a prequel that tells Jordan's story. Then again, there are several Green Lanterns on earth at the same time in the comics, so why couldn't there be two GLs in the movies? To pull it off logically, there would probably have to be a cameo by the actor playing John Stewart in Justice League.
The story for a Wonder Woman film isn't quite so positive. While promoting Fred Claus, producer Joel Silver acknowledged that his production of Wonder Woman was put on the back burner. "They're going to make the Justice League movie, and we're kind of pausing on Wonder Woman now," he said. "Let them go ahead and do that picture [first]. And if that comes together, Wonder Woman will be a part of that story. And then we'll see where we go from there. But we struggled with it for a while. I hope that we can solve it and make it one day."
October 27, 2007
JUSTICE LEAGUE CASTING ON MONDAY?
A new voice has entered the Justice League rumor sweepstakes in the form of the site news.lalate.com, which is claiming that there will be an important announcement on the subject on Monday. Offers the site, "lalate exclusively can report that sources are suggesting that the cast of the Justice League movie will be announced Monday in one of two Hollywood trade publications [Variety or The Hollywood Reporter]. Sources suggest the cast has been decided, but do not know themselves [presumably the sources themselves and not the actors] and everyone will find out the cast when that publication hits newsstands this coming Monday." A little worrisome about the report in terms of its legitimacy is that they also mention that the JL movie, as well as the sequel to Superman Returns and future seasons of Smallville, could be derailed by the lawsuit brought against Warners by the estate of Jerry Siegel seeking a copyright reversal on the Superman character. While this could happen down the road, the way it was reported by lalate makes it sound as though it's breaking news, and the source they're citing are fairly old.
Over at iesb.net, Robert Sanchez reports, "Despite recent reports that Aussie actress Teresa Palmer has scored the role of Wonder Woman in the upcoming Justice League Of America film, it is runway queen Megan Gale who is actually short-listed for the role that Jessica Beal passed on, industry sources say. Certainly Gale has been spotted paying visits to Fox Studios in recent weeks, which is where the George Miller-directed film will be shot. An announcement on the Wonder Woman role is expected next Tuesday. However, Gale's dark beauty does have more in common with Lynda Carter, who was such a hit in the Wonder Woman TV series. Go Megan!" One downside, according to Sanchez, is the fact that she has done nude modeling in the past, which could be a problem if Warners feels it would tarnish the image of Wonder Woman.
CHECK OUT OUR DEDICATED PAGE TO JUSTICE LEAGUE BY CLICKING HERE.
FROM THE WATCHTOWER
SPOILER ALERT: Although there was a "scare" regarding the plotline of Justice League when 14 pages of the film's screenplay was supposedly leaked, which gave the impression of being nothing more than an episode of Super Friends on steroids. Thankfully those pages were eventually dismissed as a hoax, and, based on what are reported to be legitimate pages, it does seem that the storyline is indeed taken to a large degree from the comics. As infamous_emijayne explains it, a funeral at the beginning of the film is for Barry Allen (The Flash). "Wally West takes over as Flash upon his death," the poster offers. "The plot honestly follows very closely to the OMAC storyline with some extras thrown in. Those would be Ra's Al Ghul (which I think turns out to be Martian Manhunter) and his daughter Talia. She will end up being the lead villain and 'puppet master so to speak, as she seeks revenge against Batman for killing her father. Superman falls under the control of Maxwell Lord and turns on the team believing them to be past enemies. The one major change I've been told of is that Superman will try to kill Wonder Woman and Batman will figure out what is going on and commit murder to release Superman's mind and save WW. In the comic, it is Batman about to die and WW breaks Maxwell's neck to snap Superman out of the mind control. There will be some MAJOR battles between Superman and the other members, especially WW."
Earlier today, www.aint-it-cool-news.com reported some major spoilers from someone who had apparently read the screenplay. Among the facts revealed: No Lois Lane or Lex Luthor in the film; Superman has a "huge" role in the film, as well as a major battle with Wonder Woman and Batman; Aquaman has a small role; and scenes involving Barry Allen's The Flash and Wally West are heavily featured in the film and are considered the highlight of the film, in addition to the Superman/Wonder Woman/Batman fight sequences.
October 21, 2007
MAN OF STEEL: STARTING FROM GROUND ZERO?
According to a report in Variety, Warner Brothers is currently seeking new writers to pen Man of Steel, Bryan Singer's currently-in-development follow-up to 2006's Superman Returns. Apparently writers Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris have decided not to stay aboard the project so they can pursue individual directing possibilities. The Variety story states there are two possibilities in terms of an approach to the film: start from scratch, essentially ignoring much of what happened in its predecessor (much as Marvel's Incredible Hulk is doing next summer), or pick up threads from where Superman Returns left off, but increasing the action quotient to, as Singer put it at Comic-Con, go Wrath of Khan with it. For the full story, click HERE.
October 19, 2007
FROM THE WATCHTOWER
Over at Aintitcool.com, Quint posted a report on possible casting for Justice League, beginning with a run-down of the members of Young Hollywood who have reportedly been auditioning for roles in the film, the names of which have sent waves of terror across the Internet with fears of a team more in common with the Teen Titans than the JL.
“I’ve since spoken with a source buried deep in the production who shed some light on this casting session,” offered Quint. “This source said that all those people above (and many more) were only reading for two characters: The Flash and Wonder Woman. The source assured me that the casting is skewing very young and only for The Flash, because he’s the youngest member of the Justice League. And Wonder Woman is a goddess that doesn’t age, so it’s understandable she’d be cast young.
Cinematical reports that Shannyn Sossamon (whose credits include A Knight’s Tale and One Missed Call) auditioned for director George Miller. “Details are scarce,” the website offered, “but we know the following: Sossamon did audition for Princess Di and she apparently blew away the writing team of Kieran and Michele Mulroney and has heard back from them since. According to our source, the Mulroneys were so taken with Sossamon that they championed her to director Miller, even going so far as to state that they envisioned Sossamon in the Amazonian role all along. But now comes the bad news… our source also tells us that Miller was less than over the moon about Sossamon’s audition, which means that a resulting stalemate will almost certainly break in his favor.”
On the subject of casting, Voices From Krypton received an email from Countingdown poster infamous_emiljayne, who offers, “Today something came in that made me go back to my emails. I got a call that aintitcool is reporting that only the parts of Flash and Wonder Woman were ready for at the auditions. Now, what struck me about this in all the craziness a few days ago, I was told by three people that nobody read for the big three because they were already cast. After reading what AICN had to say, I responded to those emails and they all got back to me pretty quickly, saying they had it mixed up and that what they thought of as the “Big Three” was actually Batman, Superman and Green Lantern. Now, here’s where I have a bit of an issue. These people are the same ones that even in their most recent responses claim Tom Welling will be revealed as Superman. They say Gough and Noveck are both stalling and covering up so WB can make their grand announcement of the entire cast. They haven’t been wrong with anything yet. So, if they’re right about the auditions, are they right about Welling, too? That’s the million dollar question. This is just my personal opinion here, but I think too many things leaked out creating a need for more excuses and cover ups than WB could keep track of. Either way, it’s gonna come back to bite them. If a third person takes the role [of Superman], WB looks really bad. If Welling takes the role, Gough and Noveck look bad. Unless of course they try and say something happened at the very last minute and use the excuse of things constantly changing in Hollywood. Regardless, if this turns out to be Teen Titans in disguise, everyone will look bad.
“As more things come out that are legit,” continued infamous, “I’m seeing more and more connections to those who have always stood their ground saying Gough is lying. And re-reading your interview today, I still got the impression Noveck was giving an opinion on Welling. So did a few others I showed it to. There’s just so much false stuff around even I don’t know what to think.”
While on this page (www.voicesfromkrypton.com) DC’s Gregory Noveck has sung the praises of the Justice League screenplay, a report earlier this week from moviehole.net claimed to have gotten their hands on the first 14 pages of the film’s script and the subsequent report was not encouraging. In a nutshell, instead of focusing on the OMACs and a mind-controlled Superman, it introduced the Crime Syndicate, an evil parallel world version of the League from the comics. All in all, the approach felt like a live-action episode of Super Friends, and had the cumulative effect of being fairly groan-inspiring. But then Robert Sanchez and iesb.net and several others seems to have turned out the fact that those 14 pages were a fake. Collective sigh of relief, right? Wrong. Apparently. At least based on a report from Stephanie Sanchez at iesb, changes are indeed being made in the script, particularly after Chris Nolan told the site that he was concerned Justice League not step on his creative toes and what he’s doing with the Batman franchise.
“So,” mused Sanchez, “is this the beginning of those changes?” She then quoted from emails they’d received on the subject: “Confirmed. It’s real. Maxwell Lord is the main villain. OMACs are part of the plan. Crime Syndicate is a diversion to keep the JLA busy while the OMACs take control.” Come To which Sanchez asked, “does this mean it’s the final draft, let’s go shoot it? Hell no. I am sure there are many rewrites to come and script changes aplenty. (At least, God help us, there will be some changes. Did you all read the details? Unsettling)
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October 18, 2007
DC'S GREGORY NOVECK DISCUSSES "MAN OF STEEL" AND "JUSTICE LEAGUE"
Over at our sister site Voices From Krypton, the second part of an exclusive interview with DC’s Gregory Noveck has been posted, in which he discusses both Man of Steel and Justice League.
The good news for fans of Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns is that the sequel is still in the works, despite Internet rumors to the contrary. And for Justice League fans, according to Noveck the reason the film is heading so quickly into production is that writers Kiernan and Michele Mulroney apparently "nailed" the material from the get-go and the studio is ready to go. To check out the full interview, just click HERE.
October 16, 2007
October 15, 2007
EXCLUSIVE: AN INTERVIEW WITH DC'S GREGORY NOVECK
Look for an exclusive interview with DC's Gregory Noveck in which he discusses the reasons that Tom Welling will NOT be Superman in Justice League and why it's necessary to have several actors playing characters like Superman and Batman at the same time, hence an explanation for why Welling can play one version of Superman on Smallville, Brandon Routh in Bryan Singer's Superman films and a third actor in Justice League. Just head over to Voices From Krypton by clicking HERE.