Last summer’s news that Warner Bros. were moving ahead on a Justice League movie was easily one of the best pieces of news I’d heard in a long time.
Marvel have been done an amazing job with Phase One of their Cinematic Universe, beginning with Iron Man in 2008 and leading up to The Avengers last year. And naturally the prospect of the DC equivalent coming to the big screen has been immensely intriguing.
But it looks like the project has come into some trouble, with Bad Ass Digest hearing “from multiple sources” that the script that Will Beall (Castle, Gangster Squad) wrote for the studio has been scrapped.
The report says that these sources claim that heroes – beyond the core five of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and The Flash – have been cut and added “seemingly at studio executive will.”
Recent reports have suggested that the studio will wait to see how Zack Snyder’s immensely anticipated Man of Steel movie fares at the box office. And after that, it will consider the green light for Justice League accordingly.
If these reports are indeed right, you can’t help but feel it might be more to do with too much studio involvement at script level than placing any blame at Beall’s feet. Though he hasn’t previously penned a script for a film of this size, he does have plenty of experience writing for TV’s Castle. And Gangster Squad’s script was very tight and well-written for my money.
But without much experience writing a blockbuster like this, you can imagine that he’d have pressure from above to make changes and alterations from multiple sources – especially whilst the film lacks a director to give it a cohesive vision – and that can’t be good for the finished product.
If Warner Bros. is indeed ready to throw the script out, I’m really hoping that they’re not ready to give up on Justice League just yet. The film has so much potential, both for itself and for the DC Cinematic Universe that could continue beyond.
We’ve heard reports that Snyder’s Man of Steel will finish by setting up the Justice League film, and it will be very interesting to see whether or not that’s true.
The Justice League movie has been tentatively scheduled for release in Summer 2015. But it looks like we may well need to wait until after Man of Steel before we find out if the studio will want to move forward with the project. If, like me, you would love to see a Justice League movie on the big screen, then be sure to head out to Snyder’s Man of Steel this summer.
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