9. Plastic-Man
Of all the DC properties fans have been clamoring to see on film, I can safely say that Plastic-Man remains near the bottom of that list. Though he's often fought beside the rest of the Justice League, he doesn't necessarily deserve the big screen treatment before characters like The Flash or Wonder Woman. Yet, it nearly happened thanks to the Wachowskis, the famous directors of the Matrix trilogy. For those who don't know, Plastic-Man has, as his name would suggest, the powers and abilities of a rubber band. Patrick O'Brien is a former crook who gains his abilities after being bathed in toxic waste that enters his bloodstream through a gunshot wound. His body goes through a mutagenic process that transforms his physiology, making him neither fluid nor solid. He's able to completely control and change his body structure, density, and size. He has the ability to stretch his body into any imaginable form, and is known for being one of DC's most quirky, offbeat characters, whose stories are filled with slapstick humor. Warner Bros. began work on a Plastic-Man film in the 1990s, along with Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, which would have been directed by Bryan Spicer (who is predominantly a television director whose big screen debut was Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie). The Wachowskis wrote a screenplay in 1995, and expressed their continued interest in the film as recently as 2008. They wanted Keanu Reeves for the lead-role, and wanted to take the film in a surprisingly dark direction. In typical Wachowski fashion, the film would have had a pseudo-philosophical tone and would have taken some liberties with the source material. Patrick O'Brien was renamed Daniel O'Brien, an environmental nut who gains his powers after an evil industrialist uses him as an unwilling lab rat. Apparently, the experiments were meant to find a way for the deformed industrialist to look handsome again, and the Wachowskis would have used the film as a sort of social commentary on plastic surgery and environmentalism. Which, frankly, wouldn't be fit for a character like Plastic-Man. If a Plastic-Man film is going to be made, it needs to be done right, keeping the nature of the character intact and embracing his ridiculous, slapstick premise. Chances are the Wachowskis' vision of the film will never happen, especially now that DC is revamping and launching a shared cinematic universe. Maybe we'll see Patrick O'Brien up on the big screen at some point in the future, but DC has some more important characters they need to bring to life first.