Film News: Justice League to shoot Next Year; Aiming for 2015 release

With yesterday's hearing between DC comics/WB pictures and the heirs of Superman co-creator, Joe Shuster finished...for now. It looks like WB's recent win has  benefited the studio by finally green-lighting the highly delayed "Justice League" film adaptation.



From the LA Times:

"Warner hopes to shoot the film next year and release it in the summer of 2015. The studio already has a "Justice League" script in the works. Next it needs to attach a director and then cast the lead roles."




This is the first actual piece of news on the J.L. adaptation since it's last take on the iconic team, "Justice League: Mortal" was cancelled in early 2008, due to the economy in Australia (we're it was to be shot at), the 2007 Writer's Guild of America strike and that both DC and Warner wanted the script to be perfect. Mortal was to be directed by Mad Max director, George Miller and there was already a cast picked for the scrapped film.

The Cast:


D.J. Cortrona as Superman/Clark Kent

Armie Hammer as Batman/Bruce Wayne

Megan Gale as Wonder Woman/Princess Diana of Themyscira

Adam Brody as The Flash/Wally West

Hugh Keays-Byrne as Martian Manhunter/J'onn J'onzz

Teresa Palmer as Talia Al Ghul

Zoe Kazan as Iris Allen

Santiago Cabrera as Aquaman/Arthur Curry

Jay Baruchel as Maxwell Lord

Common as Green Lantern/John Stewart


From various reports when the movie was still in development, the script done by Kieran and Michelle Mulroney took elements from Justice League arcs such as Mark Waid's "Tower of Babel", in which Batman creates a back-up plan to destroy the League, should that day ever come, and Geoff John's DC crossover event, "Infinite Crisis". Crisis started in October 2005 and ended in June 2007, and it featured the character Maxwell Lord. He was not only using Superman through mind-control to take out the League, but was also using the artificial intelligence "Brother Eye" to kill all the meta-humans on earth.

It's also shows in the cast that this scrapped film was inspired by the DCAU series, "Justice League/Justice League: Unlimited", created by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm. With the recent live-action film Green Lantern and the CGI cartoon series, "Green Lantern: the Animated Series", it's most likely to assume that Hal Jordan will once again be the emerald warrior.

In regards to Ryan Reynolds reprising his role is still unknown, but with recent reports saying that this and next year's Superman reboot, "Man of Steel" will kick-start a live-action DC comics universe, expect a re-casting in the near future.


The script-writer for the current adaptation is Will Beall, the writer of the upcoming film, "Gangster Squad". Recently in June, writer Mark Millar (Kick-Ass, Old Man Logan, The Secret Service) stated that he has heard about Beall's take on the iconic team, through a good friend of his. (take a HUGE grain of salt):


"A pal of mine is good friends with the new Justice League screenwriter and said his take on the team is incredible. Very real-world and not at all what you might expect. WB has a checkered history with their superhero characters. They're great with their boy wizards, but less consistent with their DC stable. But my chum said that this could be a thing of beauty and has been in the works for a little while now, not just an Avengers knock-off. Best of luck to them. The tidbits I heard sound quite dark and mature, which isn't what I expected. But word on Gangster Squad is great too, so I feel this is in really good hands."


At the moment, DC/WB's Justice League is slated to be released in Summer of 2015 and will be competing with Marvel Studios' "The Avengers 2"


For all your film news, updates in the industry and film culture, please stay tuned to the broken infinite.

What do you guys think ? Leave your comments and thoughts in the comment box below.


Source:- LA Times



- Screen Rant


twitter:
- @DCComics


- @wbpictures


- @mrmarkmillar


- @latimes


- @Screenrant

Dini Confirms Not Coming Back for 'Arkham 3' Video Game

  Between his twitter account and his personal blog in Livejournal called King of Breakfast, Paul Dini has confirmed that he will NOT be writing the third video game in the Arkham Asylum/City franchise. The following is taken straight from his blog:


So here's what's what with the Batman games as far as they relate to me:

The last talk I had with Warner Interactive about future games was while I was doing promotion for Arkham City last September. Naturally as there was such a rush of interest about Arkham City, everyone was asking me about a third game, and frankly, I had been wondering about that myself. When I asked about the possibility of working on a third game I was told that as Rocksteady had just finished wrapping the second one, it would be a while before everyone was ready to sit down and discuss future plans. That said, it was intimated that for future games, Warner and Rocksteady might not be looking as much to freelance writers, the message being, that if I had something else interesting coming my way, I might want to take it. 

When I later read their subsequent announcements about the Harley Quinn's Revenge game expansion and the rumored Arkham prequel/JLA game, I figured they had filled their writer needs. I had long before taken WI's advice and booked my schedule with a number of other projects, leaving me unavailable to take on anything new until 2013. It was fun working with Warners and Rocksteady on the first two Arkham games and I am grateful to them both for a tremendous experience. Rocksteady has a great crew of artists and storytellers, and it was exciting and enlightening for me to be part of that team. If we wind up working together again at some point, that would be cool, too.





 With that said, Rocksteady will be working on the third part with out Dini. Arkham Asylum and Arkham City have both garnished plenty of awards, including Game of the Year. Both those games are available for PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

Not A Word In Edge-wise: Superman Vs The Elite

What happens when two people happen to want to do the same thing here on Broken Infinite? WE COLLABORATE!!! So, Me and Caleb have our separate views lined up with a discussion to follow.


Mike's Review: Superman Vs. The Elite asks some pretty intriguing questions to Superman. Is he the hero that today needs? Or wants? Are any of his values still resonate with modern society? These are great questions and they are fairly well answered in the film whilst leaving enough room for discussion for the viewer. The voice work, as been the case with most of DC's DTV movies, is solid stuff all around. Everyone sounds great and in character. The action is fast and snappy but not the main focus as has been the case in other DC movies. Plenty of time is spent on presenting this ideological conflict towards Superman. Bottom Line: Another fine addition to DC's film series. I'd dare say it is to Superman what the Red Hood movie was for Batman.

Caleb's Rewiew:

Before Justice League: Doom, I was ready to throw the DCUA team under the bus. Each of their films were direct adaptations with nothing really new to add to the work. After Justice League: Doom, I was so happy to be singing the praises of DCUA again, something I hadn't really done since New Frontier, and even that wasn't quite to the level of the praises I sung for Doom. Superman vs The Elite continues this trend, even if it takes the smallest of steps back towards the end of the movie. I think my ability to like this film is attached pretty prominently to my own philosophies and ideaologies, which may or may not be the case for all people. I think if you can let go some of those, or at least look past them, you'll find a very enjoyable film that's at the quality these DCUA films have been at animation and sound wise, but also at a story telling point too. 

Now, advance warning, while our reviews above don't delve into spoilers, our discussion does. You have been warned. 

 Caleb: So, what did you think of the movie to start off with?

 Michael Flinn: I thought it was pretty good. I'm coming from a position of not having read the source material so I can only judge the film on itself. I thought that it asked some interesting questions to Superman and while I did find his final response a little out of character at first, the end result was satisfying. Also, Black Manchester was the only one of The Elite of interest. The rest felt poorly done and just there as things for Superman to punch.

Caleb: Fair warning though, I must say that What's So Funny is my least favourite Superman comic ever. Superman vs The Elite, I actually really liked on the otherhand. That is, up until the final showdown.

 I think the Final Showdown still acts out of character to such a horrific degree to make the entire point Superman was making just as much against to him as it was to the Elite too. We don't like seeing our Police Officers kill people, but we're also not fans of excessive force. Superman, most definitely, gave excessive force. What's worse, is that the film almost seemed to be leading up to no showdown. I was wholey expecting them to not have that ending and to have Superman solve the problem with words.

Michael Flinn: One thing I did like is that they really nailed how scary Superman could be if he ever decided to really lose hope.

Caleb: Yeah, but I think that concept is done much better in the pages of Irredeemable, where the Superman like Plutonian becomes, as the title suggest, irredeemable. I think Superman's action is kind of right on thet redeemability line. Would have been much better if he had just asked: "Where does it end? You're willing to kill a murderer, government officials who you see as indirect murderers, and now you're willing to kill any hero who stands in your way? What will become of the regular people who stand in your way? What will become of the children who steal so that they don't starve?" And like it was as if asking them "Why don't you just put the whole world in a bottle?" Manchester would breakdown entirely.

Michael Flinn: Still, you'd have people pissed because it wasn't "faithful" to the original story.

Caleb: And those people could cry to their mama's. They're not even a 10th of the amount of people who buy the DVD.

Michael Flinn: None the less

Caleb: But what I liked about the film more than the comic, was that up until then, it wasn't anything like the comic. It had the ideas in there, but instead of a Holier Than Thou Superman, we had an honest and sincere Superman. A Superman I didn't think lorded over his superiority to mankind and had to act like our babysitter, our big brother, feeling we NEED protecting like he's Mister Majestic, but a Superman that seemed like he just wanted to be able to do the right thing, to help people, to stop threats no one else could, and to be a hero the world to look up to and be inspired by.

Michael Flinn: Yeah. I saw that too. It contrasts well with The Elite, who are representative of 70's hyper violence or, in the movie's case, 90's anti-heroes

Caleb: Not only that, but I felt for them too. Mostly for Manchester Black. But still, by extension, the entire team. They seemed like very well meaning people who felt that their action was the right one, and had power to back that up. But they were still misguided. In the end, I wanted to see Manchester actually learn something. I wanted to see them become honest to goodness heroes who tried to attone for their sins.

Michael Flinn: That would've been a pretty cool ending

Caleb: There's a line in the comic that says that he didn't actually lobotomize him, and that he just did a psy pulse. Makes no sense, but it makes it okay for what happened. The movie lets you think Superman actually lobotomized him. As much as I can see him needing to do that, I still think it's wrong to do it. 

Michael Flinn: I did think it was kind of harsh to take away their powers. Though I do like the heat vision lobotomy. Not as bad as Doomsday's but still awesome.


So the final verdict is that Superman Vs The Elite is a pretty solid film overall that actually makes the viewer think a little bit. Go and check it out.