While the world waits for Marvel to bring their superhero conglomerate to life in next year’s film, The Avengers, fans of the DC universe have been left to wonder if they would ever see a movie that brought all of their favorite characters together in the DC Comics super team equivalent, the Justice League. George Miller (Happy Feet, The Road Warrior) was close a few years back, and his proposal was to cast original actors in iconic roles but avoid any connection to existing properties. It was an idea that Warner Bros. liked, and things seemed to be moving ahead to the point that casting was underway. Then the writers’ strike began, and it along with several other properties fell apart.
In an interview with the LA Times, recently promoted Warner Bros. President of the motion picture group, Jeff Robinov, discussed the DC properties. Along with announcing that after The Dark Knight Rises has released the Batman films will reboot under a different director, Robinov confirmed that the DC properties are a priority for him. This year will see the first Green Lantern film, next summer will belong to The Dark Knight Rises, and late next year, Zack Snyder’s Superman: The Man of Steel will be released. Then, assuming everything goes as planned and all three films do well—or at least make back their budget which shouldn’t be too difficult—a Justice League film would be released in 2013.
It is far too early to consider who would be featured in the film, but both Flash and Wonder Woman are being developed for Warner Bros, so the studio is hot on both characters. Robinov was quick to dismiss any concerns of competing franchises though.
“Wonder Woman could be a film as well, the same way that ‘Superman Returns’ came out while ‘Smallville’ was on,” Robinov said, referring to the upcoming Wonder Woman pilot for NBC.
To further back up the idea that Justice League will be a standalone film that will not be beholden to the various franchises it may overlap with, in an interview with the website Heyuguys.co.uk Snyder discussed the multiple properties.
“Like what Chris Nolan is doing and what I’m doing with ‘Superman’, what they’ll do with ‘Justice League’ will be its own thing with its own Batman and own Superman.” Snyder told the website, “We’ll be over here with our movie and they’ll kinda get to do it twice, which is kind of cool.”
Of course, 2013 is a long way away in Hollywood, and many things could happen over the next two years. But for now, it is looking more and more like The Justice League will be a standalone movie, which means it might actually have a shot at getting made.
