justice league concept

A whole slew of Justice League related materials just hit the various movie outlets, and there’s a number of places I could link to, but I particularly like Devin Faraci’s write-up of the whole experience (from a perspective not totally off-set from my own).

First things first, there’s an official synopsis out now:

Fueled by his restored faith in humanity and inspired by Superman’s selfless act, Bruce Wayne enlists the help of his newfound ally, Diana Prince, to face an even greater enemy.  Together, Batman and Wonder Woman work quickly to find and recruit a team of metahumans to stand against this newly awakened threat.  But despite the formation of this unprecedented league of heroes—Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg and The Flash—it may already be too late to save the planet from an assault of catastrophic proportions.

Directed by Zack Snyder, this marks the big screen debut of the Justice League, featuring an all-star lineup: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot, Jason Momoa, Ezra Miller and Ray Fisher.

Other than Affleck and maybe Cavill, we’re stretching the definition of star here perhaps, but it’s nice to get a sense of where this is going.

According to all sources, the big McGuffins of the film will be a trio of motherboxes, with each belonging to ancient man, the Amazonians, and Atlantis respectively. Steppenwolf and his army of parademons will be hunting these items and the Justice League will be the only thing standing in their way.

Speaking of Atlantis, those of us wondering who Willem Dafoe is playing…it’s Vulko, advisor to Aquaman.

No shock here, but Ben Affleck also confirmed the long-standing reports that he’ll be directing the next Batman solo film:

AFFLECK: Why I’m an executive producer is that I’m directing one of the movies. So there’s sort of this cross pollination of story and characters and I don’t want to give any of that stuff away, but it basically means that there are some things that might happen in my Batman that are affected by I mean, here we are in the police station in Gotham city. There’s a potential that something like this might exist in that story. So it’s a creative way that DC came up with of kind of being a filmmaker-driven company and entity and also making sure that the right hand knows what the left hand is doing and so that there’s collaboration and supervision. So that somebody doesn’t go sailing off, causing problems for your movie with their movie. You know, in a way, it’ also a kind of a courtesy. You know what they’re doing, one hand knows what the other is doing, and I get to weigh in on stuff that impacts the Batman stuff.

Batman is also getting some new tech with snazzy names like “The Knightcrawler” and “The Flying Fox” and few different suits for the film. Whereas the (very red) Flash costume is also a piece of Waynetech and apparently contains 148 different pieces (!). On the other-hand, Cyborg’s suit will be all-CGI, and again as rumored, Cyborg and Flash will be the kind of Booster Gold and Blue Beetle of this team. Multiple outlets are confirming that Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen will also be the comedic relief of the film. Given the grim proceedings of Batman v Superman, this is welcome news.

Both Deborah Snyder and Zack Snyder were interviewed, and I’m particularly happy with the former’s take on things:

If each film is a learning experience, what do you think is the main thing you learned from BvS you used here?

Deborah Snyder: I think the main thing we learned is that people don’t like to see their heroes deconstructed. I think that’s hard because it’s people we’ve grown up with and that we care about. They like seeing them in all their glory.

So who do you guys see as the target audience for these films because one of the things I think was interesting with BvS was seeing a lot of parents discovering that in the case of their younger kids, it was a little darker than they were ready for. That maybe 8-year-olds, 9-year-olds maybe weren’t the target audience for a Superman movie, which they weren’t expecting. So isJustice League more inclusive for that crowd?

D. Snyder: Justice League is much more inclusive. I think also it’s all about the characters too. And we have these two very young characters, Flash and Cyborg. And you know, they’re definitely lighter. I think they’re going to appeal to a younger audience. I think the darkest where we’ll be is where we’ve been.

And Zack Snyder added in his bit, where he reveals just how surprised he was by the reaction to Batman v Superman:

“You know, when Batman Superman first came out, I was like, ‘Wow, okay, woof.’ It did catch me off-guard. I kind of felt like – and I have had to, in my mind, make an adjustment, and maybe it is my hardcore take on characters as far as I love ’em, and I love the material. I do, I take it really deep. So I think the nice thing about working on Justice League is that it is an opportunity to really blow the doors off of the scale and the bad guys and team-building and all the stuff that I think I could justify as a big, modern comic book movie, if that makes any sense.”

Do peruse the above-link or any of the detailed reports that went up this morning. There’s lots of great insight, and interviews with key cast, even scene descriptions. Maybe just maybe there’s a chance for optimism regarding the potential for course correction, I sure hope so!

 

 

 

8 COMMENTS

  1. I hope Justice League is a better movie, for sure, but there’s a lot that’s disingenuous here. Snyder was pushing for an R rating, so there is no shock that his Superman movie was no good for 8 year olds.

    Honestly, my real hope was that he was banished from touching anything with a cultural value. Let him make his own crap R rated films.

    If he proves he understands grown up feelings, we can take the baby out of the corner.

  2. So… how is a PG-13 movie suitable for an 8-year-old?

    Thankfully, DC is releasing a DC Super Hero Girls DVD this summer…

  3. @TA,
    That’s the wrong question to ask given the history of the characters and property. The right question WB should have asked prior to release is: “How is a PG-13 movie (much less an R) suitable for Superman and that character’s audience?” In seeking the answer, the reaction and movie’s performance would have not been a surprise.

    Silly but True

  4. Snyder’s kind of a lost cause. This whole debacle has moved his work from harmless schlock to avoid-at-all-costs.

    Jesus…so clueless.

  5. “my hardcore take on characters as far as I love ’em, and I love the material. I do, I take it really deep.”

    This is probably a true statement from Snyder. He may very well love the characters but not as an adult loves the joys of his or her youth. He loves them with the perverse fixation of the overgrown adolescent who never developed emotionally beyond thinking how cool it would be if Superman fried somebody’s eyeballs with his Heat Vision.

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