The fun of rumors continues when it comes to a big screen answer to The Avengers from Warner Bros. & DC Comics as there’s essentially the view that there’s a pile of money on the table. While Warner has navigated the novel to move adaptation serial well with the Harry Potter books, they’ve not managed to deal with the huge range of potentially strong character brands under their ownership with DC Comics. They’ve had successes with the Christopher Nolan Batman movies of course, but beyond that it’s been meager and often strays too far from the source to really win over fans, ala Smallville. So the rumor machine continued recently when someone posited that Warner was talking with Ben Affleck about a Justice League movie, to which he has 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.”
Frankly, a director for Justice League is not Warner’s problem. As others have said, it’s the lack of a unifying and driving vision within Warner to guide it. Marvel Studios really lucked out with Kevin Feige and he’s smartly brought in one of the best people to help guide their Phase Two operations with Joss Whedon. With Warner not able to bring Christopher Nolan on board for it, there’s nothing in their stable to really push things.
That’s not stopping them from trying to get Justice League off the ground though as now that Moviehole is saying that, “Warner Bros are apparently jazzed with “Cloud Atlas”, and love that it’s as much a spectacle as it is a showcase for the immense ensemble involved, so it makes sense the W’s are under consideration.”
The pair behind The Matrix are certainly the types to pull it off visually and with a particular feel. Their works after that trilogy has been mixed to be sure, with V For Vendetta hitting only certain fans right from the original material to the universally panned Speed Racer (which I absolutely adored). What’s getting Lana and Andy’s name back in the game now is their work on Cloud Atlas, a very complicated novel adaptation with a large ensemble cast. From the extended promo that’s out there, I can say that they may be the most interesting name brought into play so far when it comes to a Justice League. It’d certainly be controversial on one level, but if Cloud Atlas does what it sets out to achieve, they could be the right pair to breathe life into this and spawn things in reverse, letting a Justice League movie launch individual character movies as opposed to the Marvel Studios methd.
