They repeatedly withstood the challenges of Braniac, Lex Luthor and
the various other members of the evil Legion of Doom, but it appears that the
Justice League of America's superheroes may have finally met their match in the
form of a far more sinister group of super-villains: movie studio executives. A
Justice League movie, reportedly featuring Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green
Arrow, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter and the Flash, was originally given the green light
by Warner Bros. back in September of 2007, but its prospects dimmed considerably with the onset of the WGA strike. It seems the knockout blow came recently with Christopher Nolan's game-changing The Dark
Knight, which caused Warners to reevaluate all of its DC Comics-related projects.
"We're not off the
notion of a Justice League," Warners exec Jeffrey Robinov told Variety last Friday. "There's a massive interest and knowledge in the comic book
industry and it takes time to sort of catch up and understand the characters
and the history, where they've intersected with each other and what their
worlds are."
"We're going to
make a Justice League movie, whether it's now or 10 years from now," DC
Comics exec Gregory Noveck added, perhaps a tad optimistically. "But we're
not going to do it and Warners is not going to do it until we know it's
right."
Don't look for a Justice League movie anytime soon. According to IESB, director George Miller has been pulled from the project to work on Green Lantern. Warners
probably won't revisit the concept until Nolan is finished with the
Batman franchise. Since Nolan's committed to at least one more Batman flick, the
studio will have to wait at least 3-5 years before it can resume butchering
DC's titles.
The real loser in all of this is clearly the much-maligned Aquaman,
whose long-awaited shot at big screen immortality has once again been tabled
indefinitely.