Justice League: Mortal - What Really Happened?

3. Derailed By A Writer's Strike, And An Australian Film Council

Unfortunately, Justice League: Mortal became a victim of the 2007 Hollywood Writers' Strike, which delayed production for several months. Come 2008, and the film was set to begin production, only for progress to be derailed by the Australian Film Commission.

Miller, himself an Australian, wanted to film Mortal entirely down under, which would've brought dozens of jobs and millions of dollars to the country, but his attempts were eventually scuppered by the Film Commission, who felt as though there weren't enough Australians in the main cast to qualify Warner Bros. for a 40% tax rebate.

Production had already been delayed by several months at this stage, but WB were still determined to meet the film's original premiere date of summer 2009. However, production was subsequently shifted to Vancouver, by which point The Dark Knight then released, fundamentally altered the comic book movie landscape, and the studio had decided to shift their strategy to focus on solo superhero features instead.

So, there you have it folks. The cancellation of Justice League: Mortal gave us Green Lantern. Brilliant.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.