Every three months, the DC/Warner Bros. mill flares up again with insistent claims that they are, right this minute, working on a Justice League film. The fevered rumors will be debunked, and the Justice League film will hibernate again, until some fan digs up a “poster” or a “logline” that sends the blogosphere buzzing.
But the existence of a real, live, honest-to-George Burns Avengers movie puts those dreams into some perspective. One studio has, against all odds, put a superhero team together on-screen. It follows that the competition studio will do the same thing. However, DC/Warner Bros. has a nagging and persistent problem with that goal — they haven’t exactly laid the groundwork for a Justice League film.
The same can’t be said of Warner Bros. They’ve had opportunities. With the failure of Batman & Robin, they knew they had to “reboot” Batman if they wanted to keep him going. They had to take him back to “Year One,” a long and painful process that has its own Wikipedia entry. At any point during this process, they could (especially since they had Frank Miller in mind, and he’s never shirked Bruce Wayne’s obligations to the wider DC Universe) have decided to use Batman as the first step into a larger DCU.
But they didn’t. They handed him to Christopher Nolan, who made the fateful decision that Batman would never know about or associate with any superheroes, and did his own damn thing. And it was awesome.
However, they had another opportunity when they began production on Green Lantern. Here was a character who existed well out of Earth’s confines. For him to brush up against a godly, extra-dimensional character — Superman or Wonder Woman would have been ideal — in a cameo would be a lot more palatable than to introduce them to Batman. Green Lantern could have been the lynchpin. If Wonder Woman, the Flash, and Superman’s rebooted origin followed, a la Marvel, you could neatly tie them together in a Justice League film.
But that didn’t happen, either. For the time being, Hal Jordan stands alone, as lonely as Batman and Superman, all of them operating in their own solo superhero universes, none of them having any knowledge of the others.
For a classic Justice League movie to happen, the slate has to be completely wiped clean. You have to have a new Batman, Superman, and Green Lantern who can co-exist in a world with Wonder Woman, the Flash, and Aquaman. To introduce any of these characters to one another as they stand now would require too much disbelief on the part of an audience. There’s absolutely nothing in Christopher Nolan’s world that suggests Metropolis or Themyscira exists. To suddenly yank the fantastical into gritty Gotham undermines its very fabric. Iron Man was loose enough at the seams that bringing in Asgard wasn’t that much of a game-changer, but Superman, Batman, and the Green Lantern are too well-defined.
But here’s a thought … have you noticed who Marvel put on its Avengers roster? There’s Iron Man, Thor, Hawkeye, Captain America, Hulk, and Black Widow. Two of those characters existed as ciphers in two other superhero films. Hulk has two different origin stories, only one of which was hastily given a SHIELD mention. This is not the classic Avengers lineup, which featured Captain America, Wasp, Ant-Man, Hulk, Thor, and Iron Man. Spot the differences! Very good. Do you know why Marvel made them? Because it was the quick and dirty way to an Avengers movie. To go the old-fashioned and torturous route would have required two more origin stories, and that runs the risk of losing the cast members one already has. (See: Hulk.)
Warner Bros could easily make a Justice League movie that featured an equally diverse and original lineup. Hawkman hasn’t had a movie yet. Neither has Black Canary or the Elongated Man. Green Arrow is a stand-up guy, the kind of vigilante who might decide four or five superheroes is better than none. Why not use him as the lynchpin of a Justice League? Since only a big and tragic event brings a superhero team together, why not borrow a page out of Identity Crisis, and kill off Sue “Mrs. Elongated Man” Dibney, forcing the characters to realize that they could live together, or die alone?
Whatever path DC comics chooses — reboot or reworking — it’s unlikely that fans will get a Justice League movie until some dim and misty point like 2018. It’s on the horizon, a big and shiny prize that Warner Bros. dreams of pitting against Marvel and Disney. The latter have the advantage now, but Warner Bros. and DC gets to study and learn from its success and failure. And they have a new, strange, and innovative brand reboot to draw on. Fans are going to get a Justice League movie. The only mystery is when — and what crazy cinematic form it’s going to take.
