1. Making it Not Like The Avengers
The Justice League came before the Avengers. We of the nerdish persuasion know this. But with their blockbuster, the Avengers have effectively supplanted the League in the public eye as "the" superhero team. Which means that the makers of the Justice League film will have to work harder to make sure they aren't accused of ripping off anything about
The Avengers. For starters, it'll be one heck of a time trying to utilize Darkseid as a villain at some point without anyone rolling their eyes and calling him a Thanos imitation. And an alien invasion plot of any sort is probably right out the window, now. But it gets into even the smaller details of the film as well. Consider the dynamics between the characters. Can you do something jokey without it looking too much like what Whedon wrote for the interactions between the Avengers? Can Batman be the consummate planner he usually is without looking like Nick Fury's constant manipulator? And in case you think this doesn't matter, consider this: my mother thinks that
The Lord of the Rings invented elves*. People on the "outside" of fandom look to whatever is most familiar to them first. This is the reason
John Carter was such a tough sell. It looked like everything that came before, but that was because it was based on material that inspired what came before. The makers of that film did their best, but they couldn't quite make it work. So how
do you make it work? ...I'm not sure. To effectively answer that question would probably entail putting together an entire detailed treatment for the movie. Which I have actually done in my head several times, but I don't have the energy to write all that down. Plus, it would be boring. Suffice to say that dealing with this simply involves careful, constant consideration of how each aspect of the story comes across.
*Which, yes, you could argue that Tolkien effectively invented elves as we know them popularly now, but hair splitting hair splitting shush. So that's what I see are the biggest obstacles facing
Justice League. How do
you think they should be dealt with? And what other issues can you foresee with this project? Share your thoughts!