Superhero Rewind tackles X2 from an in-depth, historical perspective. Enjoy!

LLAP

-Cap’n Logan

According to Slice of Sci-Fi Kieren and Michele Mulroney are hard at work finishing up the Justice League script to get the movie into production. Warner Bros. is apparently shooting for a 2009 release, which is smart if they want to start competing with Marvel sometime in the next century. They had Batman Begins in 2005 and Superman Returns in 2006, but nothing else until Dark Knight comes out this summer.

I didn’t want to say this until it was certain the film would go into production (if the abandoned Superman Lives is any indication, you can never really be sure) but I don’t really think Justice League was the next logical step. I know Wonder Woman hasn’t gotten off the ground since Joss Whedon’s script was rejected, but I’d rather see a Flash movie or a Green Lantern movie before Justice League. It isn’t like the X-Men who all live together in a school and so, even though there are a lot of characters, they can all be explored simultaneously. The Justice League is mostly a team of loner superheroes who come together when there’s a global emergency. To tell a good story, there won’t be time to tell the origins of the other characters besides Batman and Superman, who we’ve already seen on the big screen; the film will be horribly bogged down if it tries.

All of the rumored actors (who have to go through re-negotiations because of the strike delay) are lesser-known, and yes, Batman and Superman won’t be played by Christian Bale and Brandon Routh. I’d like to know, then, if this is a separate continuity from those films or if Justice League will assume the Bryan Singer and Chris Nolan universes. I would especially like to know this since the villain (or one of them… no word on whether there will be more) is supposedly Ra’s Al Ghul’s daughter Talia. Is Ra’s Al Ghul dead? Is it the same Ra’s from Begins?

A part of me hopes it’s a separate entity, because as I have said before in other blogs, I don’t think the current Superman and Batman franchises really mesh as overlapping continuities. However, will the confusion this could potentially create for non-comic savvy viewers be a problem for Warner and DC if they try to do films for other characters in the future? Will a Flash movie be a different Flash than the one from this movie? What about Green Lantern and Wonder Woman?

It is unclear if all of Marvel movies are supposed to be in the same continuity. Certainly Elektra is a spin-off from Daredevil and the Wolverine movie will be an X-Men prequel, but no one ever talks about the X-Men or about mutants in the Spider-Man movies and vice-versa. The Incredible Hulk will be a re-boot, so is Hulk part of a larger Marvel film continuity or are we supposed to forget about it entirely? There is a line about Dr. Strange in Spider-Man 2, so if there is ever a Dr. Strange movie, are we supposed to assume it’s part of the Spider-Man universe? I’m making these points to show that both Marvel and DC have similar problems. The difference is, Marvel hasn’t made a team movie to introduce a lot of characters that they might want to spin-off later in entirely separate stories (the Wolverine and Magneto movies are prequels) and they haven’t made movies with characters they then want to use in a team movie and replace the actors. What Warner Bros. is doing will cause a lot more confusion, and I’m afraid it’s a bad business move because, compared to Marvel, DC is just beginning to make films. Bryan Singer’s Superman: Man of Steel won’t even go into production until after Justice League. Why is that? Does DC not want two films with Superman in them coming out close to each other or will Justice League somehow effect the next Superman film?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m really looking forward to this film and I’m glad we can finally be sure it’s going to happen. I just think other solo films should have happened first, like Marvel is dong with Iron Man and Captain America before they release an Avengers film. I still hope Justice League is great!
LLAP

-Cap’n Logan