Reports of Justice League’s death greatly exaggerated
February 29th, 2008 by Curt Holman in Comics, Film, TV/Radio
In my review of the DVD Justice League: The New Frontier this week, I mentioned how Warner Brothers had shelved plans for a new live-action movie about DC Comics’ famed superteam. It turns out that obituaries like this one were premature.
According to more recent reports, the Justice League film, to be directed by George Miller of Happy Feet and The Road Warrior fame, is moving forward now that the writer’s strike is over. One should never trust blog reports as Gospel truth (as this case demonstrates), but it sounds like Warner Brothers has decided to proceed with Justice League as its big superhero popcorn film for the summer of 2009. Supposedly its other contender for that slot was a sequel to Superman Returns, the middling Man of Steel vehicle with Bryan Singer once again to direct Brandon Routh.
In the wake of the strike, other would-be blockbusters are firming up their dates for the summer of 2009. Anything could change, but the current lineup of May alone includes a Wolverine prequel with Hugh Jackman (May 1); J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot (May 8); The Da Vinci Code’s prequel Angels and Demons (May 15); Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins with Christian Bale (May 22); and Night at the Museum 2: Escape from the Smithsonian (May 22). That sounds like intimidating competition for Justice League, which Miller has cast with largely unfamiliar young actors.
Presumably Warner Brothers reasons that if a Justice League movie succeeds, it can spin off stand-alone films about member heroes like Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, the Flash, etc. Justice League: The New Frontier makes me wonder if superhero movies are going about things all wrong.
Recently I read the new book Superman vs. Hollywood, Jake Rossen’s lively account of the occasionally successful, occasionally disastrous attempts to translate Superman from comic books to film, radio and television over the past 70 years. A perennial problem with Superman adaptations (and pretty much every other comic book movie) is how to make the actor look stalwart and convincing while wearing brightly colored tights and suspended by wires. Many Superman projects (including a Tim Burton version with Nicolas Cage) were never made because of the exorbitant cost of the special effects.
Watching New Frontier and the “Justice League Unlimited†series (both produced by the ingenious Bruce Timm), I had a revelation that, in retrospect, seems blindingly obvious. Filmmakers should try avoiding live-action superhero films altogether in favor of a slick, faithful animated take on the film. They won’t have to worry about finding an actor who looks unembarrassed as Superman: Superman will look far cooler as a drawing. No villain is too outlandish, no world-threatening disaster too big for animation. A smart animator can emulate the dynamic energy of the best comic book illustrations. And animated hero movies can have heft. The Incredibles delivered plenty of laughs, but plays the action relatively straight, with spectacular results.
Just imagine what an Incredibles-scale production could do with characters who have been pop culture legends for generations. Why, it sounds no harder than leaping a tall building in a single bound.
Send to a friend:
Leave a Reply