4. He Has The Pedigree As Well As The Clout
Tom Hooper has won an Oscar and a DGA award for Best Director, as well as being a BAFTA nominee and a DGA nominee only a few years later. The Kings' Speech and Les Miserables were nominated for countless major awards, both as Best Picture, and the former won the Academy Award for that. His last 3 films have grossed over $850 million dollars worldwide. He's certainly some sort of power player, even if it's not to the same extent as Michael Bay, James Cameron or Christopher Nolan. It can hardly be said he's a risky choice. He's a safe pair of hands with experience in critically-acclaimed crowdpleasers made for reasonable budgets. It's not like Warner Brothers would be hiring Oliver Stone! They're hiring an Oscar-winning director, not a controversial risk... Tom Hooper knows how to make damn good Cinema, and has some considerable box-office power behind him. The Justice League movie can be seen as a natural progression in his career- just another step up in terms of budget and scale. He's big, but this gig could send him into the stratosphere. He's already dealt with an existing property that's a worldwide phenomenon and beloved by entire generations, so no sweat, right? He seems less likely to be bullied by studio systems since he has experience and enough muscle of his own based on his previous track record. So if we look at it from a business angle and removed any artistic licence or creative decisions from the whole affair, he's a sensible and choice who can stand toe-to-toe with the execs breathing down his neck as he dealt with arguably their biggest property to date as a studio. More so than if WB chose a director who made a few reasonable hits and progressed from indie to mid-budget studio flicks- Hooper is definitely no one's whipping-boy and far from being a hack!