“You’ve given them everything,” Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman tells Christian Bale’s Batman in The Dark Knight Rises. “Not everything,” Batman replies; “not yet.”
Might that be Christopher Nolan’s message to DC fans as well?
The news has been spreading like wildfire in a wheat field since yesterday, across pretty much every site on the internet, originating from Latino Review: rumor has it that WB’s long gestating Justice League film is back in the works, with Christopher Nolan possibly producing, Zack Snyder (possibly) directing, and — perhaps the biggest bombshell — Christian Bale returning to play Batman alongside Henry Cavill’s Superman.
Now, granted, let’s temper our enthusiasm here — this is Warner Brothers, which have an exemplary track record of killing DC on film properties before launch. This is the studio that managed to halt up production on a David Goyer (co-writer of The Dark Knight trilogy) penned Flash film, a Goyer penned Green Arrow film, a Joss Whedon penned Wonder Woman film. If any studio can ground this gravy train, it’s WB.
And to be fair, this isn’t set in stone yet — no official announcement’s been made, none of the “core” people who’d be involved with the project have come out and said anything…but the major “geek sites” across the web — Latino Review, Ain’t it Cool News, Batman on Film — are certainly taking this with a “this sounds damn likely” attitude. And let’s not overlook the fact that, as Latino Review points out in their own report, their track record is pretty impeccable. These are the guys who broke “Heath Ledger is the Joker” and “Brandon Routh is Superman”…so if anyone’s likely to know, it’s them.
If nothing else, this is an absolutely brilliant business decision on WB’s part. WB has been trying to get a Justice League movie off the ground for a looong time now, and always with distressingly low degrees of success, from the terror of George Miller’s Justice League: Mortal to the most recent script by Gangster Squad writer Will Beale, apparently thrown out the window because it was lousy. WB is clearly desperate to compete with Marvel’s The Avengers any way they can, but how do you challenge that beheamoth?
Simple — by bringing in another behemoth.
The Christopher Nolan Batman films, in case you hadn’t heard, earned over two billion dollars worldwide. They were (generally speaking) adored by fans, got terrific reviews, and raised the game and stakes for the entire superhero genre. Bringing Christian Bale’s Batman into a team-up movie is akin to putting Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man (the obvious breakout star of the Marvel stable) into The Avengers, only moreso. The fact that everybody assumed this would never happen arguably only makes it sweeter. It’s an impossible fanboy dream…brought to life.
Creatively, there’s some more puzzling questions to be answered. How does The Dark Knight Rises’ ending — with Bruce Wayne finally putting his anger behind him and apparently retiring to Italy — affect Justice League’s set-up? Will Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s John Blake reappear? How will the filmmakers be able to balance the (comparatively) realistic Bale/Nolan vision of Batman with a guy in a red cape who can fly, a dude with a magic power ring and a man who runs faster than the speed of sound. I smell about a million op eds coming down the pike from Geek nation to answer those questions…
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4 Comments
Niggling points: A Green Lantern ring is tech, not magic (unless you’re referring to Alan Scott’s, which is a single anomaly amongst hundreds of others) and Flash runs at multiple times the speed of light, not just faster than the speed of sound :)
WB and DC can make this work. They just need to tone things down from the comics. Hulk smashes asteroids and has lifted – on rare occasions – billions of tonnes in the comics. A guy of that level fighting alongside Scarlett Johansson doesn’t make much sense, so they toned him down, as they did with Thor. If they do the same with Supes et al, it’ll work.
Darnit! Now my geek card is on suspension again… ;) Although in my own defense — so far as MY (hardly comprehensive) reading of the Green Lantern mythos has demonstrated — the “tech” behind the power rings is pretty unexplainable…we *are* dealing with a guy who can imagine a giant green truck and make it appear in front of him…
As to the Flash…science has never been my strong point, so me writing that sentence amounts to: “Well, the Flash is really fast…and faster than the speed of sound would be fast…so, yeah, I’ll put that.” This is what I get for not having applied myself in high school, lol. ;)
I agree that it’s going to be a matter of balancing the various characters/powers. Wouldn’t surprise me, for example, if Green Lantern’s constructs are a little more utilitarian, Superman’s powers are toned down a little, etc.
Chris Nolan has given away nearly a decade, whopping billions and utmost dedication to his Batman mythos. WB will definitely stick to Nolan’s Batman for its the most successful comic-book ransom till date.
1) WB should integrate Nolan’s batverse into JLA if they want the best chances of success. Why?!! Coz audiences have been accustomed with this trilogy, Chris Bale is what comes to people’s minds when you say “Batman in film” and this is seriously not the time to experiment with a new Batman, and detriment the existing foundation of the current foolproof Batman franchise.
2) Just like the way Marvel has tried its best to provide substantial foundation to its core hero Iron Man with 2 films before The Avengers, Nolan’s Batman has in fact, received a more fortified foundation with a flawless trilogy centred around Batman’s own adventures in Gotham. It’s now time for Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne to move up to a global platform with Justice League, as Batman in the comics too didn’t join JL overnight but after a lot of experience in Gotham.
The other alternative is to introduce Joseph Levitt as Batman Beyond after he’s already taken the mantle in TDKR, which is another way to keep Nolanverse active.
Even if Bale returns as Batman, Levitt can take care of Gotham like Nightwing or Batman Beyond while Bruce Wayne handles the Watch-tower operations with the other superheroes.
3) Skeptics point out that the other movie arcs such as Green Lantern and Man of Steel may not fit with Nolan’s realism. BUT KEEP IN MIND, Iron Man too had a pretty believable outline for the first film, until Marvel slowly adjusted it into the ridiculously fictious world of Thor & his Chitaurian armies of cyber bots in the Avengers. Batman’s integrity won’t be destroyed if it melds with the the atmosphere of the other JLA Members.
4) Here’s an example how Batman could’ve incorporated into JLA from Man of Steel itself : “Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) makes a cameo in Man of Steel for having funded Metropolis S.T.A.R. Labs after the finale. Superman (Henry Cavill) visits Wayne Manor in Gotham to remind Bruce that evil manifests in not only mankind itself but from beyond the stretches of our planet (General Zod, the primary antagonist in Man of Steel, is a Kryptonian). Bruce agrees that this is just the beginning of the crusade he’s laid out for Gotham all these years and that now its time for him to safeguard Earth as a whole.”
This proceeds with the addition of Flash, Wonder Woman & the rest of the team in subsequent solos.
*Christian Bale’s Batman in JLA is to Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man in The Avengers or Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine in X-Men. I cannot imagine these films without any one if them.*
Introduce Martian manhunter in Man Of Steel climax asking sups to get ready for the “war” (also wonderwomen) and they decides to go to Gotham(or Italy). Introduce flash,green arrow in JLfilm and then give each characters stand alone films