Well it looks like today the official word finally came down via Variety that George Miller will indeed be helming the JLA movie, and our old friend Singerman is being put on indefinite hiatus. Of course anyone who's read this blog over the last few weeks already knew that was the case anyway so this really isn't much of a surprise. Ok maybe to everybody except "Restart Mel" that is.According to the article:
Warner Bros. is moving aggressively ahead with the bigscreen adaptation of DC Comics’ “Justice League of America,” with George Miller on board to direct.Project, which is the initial phases of casting, is a pre-strike priority for the studio, which needs a superhero tentpole in 2009.
Still, making all the pieces fit has been complicated by overlapping superhero projects in the pipeline, since “Justice League” features a pantheon of superheroes, including Superman and Batman.
Batman and Superman are active properties for the studio, though the next installment in the Superman franchise has taken a backseat to “Justice League” in part because Warners is so keen on the “Justice League” script by Kieran and Michele Mulroney.
“Justice League” will likely feature the characters of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash and Aquaman.
Warners is in the preliminary phases of casting for “Justice League.” Several sources close to the project said that Christian Bale, star of the revived Batman film franchise, and Brandon Routh, star of Bryan Singer’s “Superman Returns,” would probably not appear in the movie.
Again, obviously all things we've heard before, but still nice to hear it from one of the industry trades as opposed to websites who's credibility everyone is always calling into question. Exactly, what "taking a back seat" means for Singerman I can't say for sure, but I would think that if JLA is a big success and the guy who plays Superman nails it, I'd have a hard time believing WB would have any interest whatsoever in returning to Singer's mess.
Oh and for all of you guys who've been emailing me asking this, I'd be fine with Tom Welling taking up the mantle in this film. He seems to have all the prerequisites for the part in addition to 7 some odd years of training for it, literally. The key thing above any actor though will always be the script and the director's vision. If those two are in line with the Supes we know and love, then everything will be alright. If we get another Singerman situation where the characters are marginalized and the source material is ignored, then it doesn't matter who we've got in the title role.
Finally, although we may have been ragging on the guy for a while we are men of honor here and we will give credit where credit is do, "Dirty" Sanchez from IESB called this one almost a month ago.
UPDATE 9/21 - Well just when you give IESB some credit for getting a scoop right it seems they've served up a big "shit sandwich" on their "big scoop" from last month about Tom Welling being the JLA's Man of Steel. Nice job, go on TV to declare to the masses that this is going to happen and then a few weeks later back away from it with the infamous "I have no idea what happened." Like I said if they were wrong on this they're going to get fried regardless of the Miller thing. They've likely now succeeded in pissing off a seemingly overwhelming amount of fans of Welling/Smallville who because of this may now have some vitriol against the JLA film when before they probably would've cared very little. Add this to the half dozen girls left on BrandonRouth.com that still care about him and feel as if he's getting replaced, and it's going to be UGLY when the new guy is announced. Way to go IESB!
