THE DC MOVIES THAT ALMOST HAPPEN

[Jacob Martin]

With all of DC's movies so far being critical blunders, divisive with the fans and flying high and then crashing hard at the box office, I thought it'd be fun looking back at all movies that almost happened over the years thanks to WB's poor management.

For background, all you need to know is that WB has access to the entire catalogue of DC Comics, but for years coasted by on Batman and Superman before the superhero movie boom of the early 2000's got them to try get their other properties off the ground.

[Adrian Green]

In 1993, Warner decided to reboot the SUPERMAN franchise "for the MTV generation", capitalizing on the popular "Death of Superman" storyline. Jonathan Lemkin took the first stab at it, writing a script in which Superman dies fighting Doomsday and his life-force impregnates Lois Lane. She gives a virgin birth to Superman's reincarnation, who grows into adulthood in a matter of weeks and finally defeats Doomsday. It didn't quite reach WB's expectations, so Gregory Poitier was brought in to make it flashier and more toyetic.

In his draft, Brainiac is Doomsday's creator, and Superman is revived by Cadmus, an alien that Brainiac has been keeping prisoner, and has to wear power armor until his powers return. It also featured Silver Banshee and Parasite as secondary villains, and had an extremely campy tone. WB still didn't felt it the story was up to snuff, and turned to Kevin Smith to write a new draft, aiming for a release date in the late 90's.

[Liam Gomez]

Smith came up with SUPERMAN LIVES, in which Lex Luthor and Brainiac team up to blot out the Sun, cutting off Superman's power source and leading to him being killed by Doomsday. However, Superman is then revived by the Erradicator, an A.I. his father had programmed to protect him, and returns to defeat Luthor and Brainiac, who was planning to destroy Earth like he once did with Krypton. The script was well-received despite producer Jon Peter's notorious demands that Superman doesn't wear tights, doesn't fly and fight a giant spider in the third act, that Brainiac had a sassy gay robot sidekick and fought sentient polar bears, and that Lex Luthor have a pet alien dog.

Sean Penn was Peter's first choice, due to his "eyes like a caged animal", but since he was unavailable, they went for the next best thing: Nicolas Cage, who was a longtime Superman fan and a major box office drawn.

[Owen Bell]

WB tapped Tim Burton to direct the movie, hoping that lightning could strike twice and he'd do for Superman what he had done for Batman in 1989. Burton brought along Wesley Strick to revise the script, adding several concepts like Lex and Brainiac merging to become a wisecracking two-headed cyborg called "Lexiac", Superman developing amnesia after being revived by the Kryptonian A.I., now called "K", and walking around as a "hip-hop Phantom of the Opera" with X-Ray goggles, rocket boots and Kryptonian ninja throwing stars, and a running gag of how Superman and Lois Lane can't have kids because the baby could probably kick his way out of her uterus.

SUPERMAN LIVES came very close to happening. Courtney Cox was in talks to play Lois Lane, with Chris Rock as Jimmy Olsen and John Mahooney as Perry White, and Kevin Spacey and Tim Allen were in talks for Lex Luthor and Brainiac. The release date was set for 1998, and teaser-posters were even sent out to major movie theater chains before the whole thing fell apart over creative differences, scheduling conflicts and basically too many cooks.

[Juan Young]

Around the same time, in 1997, BATMAN & ROBIN was expected to be a box office hit, and Warner preemptively greenlit a sequel starring George Clooney and Chris O'Donnell, and directed by Joel Schumacher, who was unhappy with how BATMAN & ROBIN turned and eager to make up for it with a "darker, emotionally complex" movie.

Mark Protosevich wrote the script, which featured Batman and Robin having a serious falling out. Meanwhile, biochemist Jonathan Crane swears revenge against Bruce Wayne for cutting his research funds for a deadly fear toxin Crane had secretly been developing. Upon learning Bruce's secret identity, Crane becomes The Scarecrow and joins forces with Harley Quinn, a toymaker who also wants revenge against Batman for the death of her father, the Joker, to use the fear toxin to drive Batman insane.

The script culminates with Batman being lured into Arkham Asylum and facing toxin-induced hallucinations of past villains including Catwoman, Penguin, Two-Face, Riddler and the Joker himself. Robin eventually comes around and returns to help Batman conquer his fears, while Harley has a change of heart upon learning Crane is planning to expose the entire city of the fear toxin and helps the heroes stop him.

Schumacher offered the role of Scarecrow to Nic Cage, while Madonna and Courtney Love, among others, had set up meetings with Warner to discuss the Harley role. Furthermore, Schumacher wanted to bring Jack Nicholson, Danny De Vito, Michelle Pfeiffer, Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey back for cameo appearances. However, once BATMAN & ROBIN came out and proved itself to be a major disappointment, the entire project was scrapped and Schumacher assigned the blame for the movie being a dud and given the boot.

[Elijah Gomez]

Even though BATMAN & ROBIN flopped, Warner wanted to salvage the franchise. Young scriptwriters Lee Shapiro and Stephen Wise found out about it and presented their own pitch, BATMAN: DARKNIGHT, which was still tentatively written for Clooney and O'Donnell.

In the script, Bruce Wayne has hanged up the cape and cowl because criminals no longer fear him. Meanwhile, at Gotham University, Dick Grayson clashes with Jonathan Crane, who is using students as unwitting test subjects for his fear toxin. Crane ends up having Grayson institutionalized at Arkham Asylum and turns his colleague Kirk Langstrom into the monstrous Man-Bat. Batman ends up being framed for a series of murders Man-Bat has committed on Crane's behalf, and Batman returns to action to rescue Grayson, cure Langstrom and prevent Crane from destroying the city by engineering a mass breakout at Arkham. After getting his face badly scarred in an explosion, Crane crudely stitches himself up and begins calling himself "Scarecrow".

Shapiro and Wise got a little carried away, mapping out sequels with Harley Quinn and a Killer Croc/Clayface team-up and Dick Grayson becoming Nightwing, but despite the good will, the duo's dark and gritty script, which veered on an R rating and had Robin as the focal character for most of the first two acts, was not strong enough for Warner, who decided the best course of action was pulling the plug on the Batman franchise as it was and starting again from the ground up.

[Jordan Gomez]

That would have been too much out there even for the nineties.

[Ethan Howard]

Care to talk about some of the Marvel movies that DID happen?

youtube.com/watch?v=QzE4Hv6Z-yk

youtube.com/watch?v=6-MlQHU-n8M

youtube.com/watch?v=KuwjYOvtBFg

youtube.com/watch?v=JrIQJqDRwp0

youtube.com/watch?v=DrbFLJHeX8w

youtube.com/watch?v=vNu6RVLXAR8

There's unexpected gold to be found practically anywhere you look.

[Ryder Baker]

Way back in 1992, WB had greenlit a Catwoman spin-off after BATMAN RETURNS gave the character a popularity boost, with Tim Burton set to direct a script by Daniel Walters, and Michelle Pfeiffer coming back.

Walters took his sweet time writing the script, and only turned it in in 1995, on the very same day BATMAN FOREVER came out and shifted the gears of the franchise towards a more kid-oriented direction, where his dark and gritty script was the odd man out. The plot saw Pfeiffer's Selina Kyle relocating to an idyllic, Steppford-esque small town where her wild ways mark her as an outcast. She soon finds out the founding fathers are corrupted and planning to destroy the whole town, and becomes the unlikely hero to save the community.

The script accumulated dust for a while until WB scrapped it off in 2001 and tried to make it happen with Ashley Judd taking the lead and axing the direct references to BATMAN RETURNS, but the stars didn't align until Halle Berry became involved, and along with her came a heavy script rewrite phasing out Selina in father of OC DO NOT STEAL Patience Philips and a magic-tinted story.

We all know how that turned out...

[Chase Lewis]

>In 1993, Warner decided to reboot the SUPERMAN franchise "for the MTV generation", capitalizing on the popular "Death of Superman" storyline. Jonathan Lemkin took the first stab at it, writing a script in which Superman dies fighting Doomsday and his life-force impregnates Lois Lane. She gives a virgin birth to Superman's reincarnation, who grows into adulthood in a matter of weeks and finally defeats Doomsday. It didn't quite reach WB's expectations, so Gregory Poitier was brought in to make it flashier and more toyetic.

Hard to believe hacksnyder didn't steal this.

[Brayden Edwards]

By 2003, WB had made no progress on standalone Superman and Batman movies, and decided that ideal solution was mashing them together for certain bank. Thus was born BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN, which was written by Andrew Kevin Walker and tentatively directed by Wolfgang Petersen. Rather than exploring the first encounter between the two, Walker's script began with them as veteran crimefighters and longtime friends. Bruce Wayne has abandoned the identity of Batman after nearly killing the Joker for murdering Robin, fearing he wouldn't be able to stop killing if he crossed the line, and settled down with a beautiful philantrophist, Elizabeth Miller. When she's killed on their honeymoon by the Joker, Bruce becomes Batman once again and goes on a rampage to kill the Joker once and for all.

When it becomes clear he doesn't care if innocents are caught in the crossfire, Superman is forced to step in, but Batman is willing to kill even his old friend to get his revenge, and of course they come to blows. In the end, it was all part of an elaborate plan by Lex Luthor to make Superman and Batman kill each other.

Akiva Goldsman stepped in for rewrites, adding some textbook great ideas like Superman being dumped by Lois Lane and going back to Smallville, where he rekindles his romance with Lana Lang and considers hanging up his cape for her, Bruce having a past relationship with Barbara Gordon, who is now a policewoman like her recently deceased father, Commissioner Gordon; Alfred also being dead, and replaced by an holographically-projected A.I. modeled after his personality and likeness; and Lex Luthor breaking out of prison by using his long fingernails to stab prison guards directly into the cortex and control them like puppets.

[Camden Flores]

There was also that Green Arrow Escape from Supermax awhile back but they didnt do anything with it.

[Robert Flores]

What about JJ Abrams Superman Flyby script?

And then Aronofskys year one?

[Carson Taylor]

damn, i would actually watch this

[Gavin Gray]

I would watch the shit out of this.

[Camden Bennett]

BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN was a big bet and attracted a lot of Hollywood talent. WB had their eyes on Jude Law and Colin Farrell for Superman and Batman, but after long negotiations they both ultimately said "no". Formal offers were then made to slightly lesser known up-and-coming stars, Josh Hartnett and Christian Bale, but before deals were made, WB started getting cold feet. Even with budget-friendly rewrites, the movie would be expensive as fuck, and a risky move that could poison two potentially high-profit brands if it fell short.

So they decided not to move forward with BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN and give another go to standalone reboots for the two characters.

[Jeremiah Clark]

>Lex Luthor breaking out of prison by using his long fingernails to stab prison guards directly into the cortex and control them like puppets

haha holy shit what

[Gabriel Allen]

That would actually be a great mini-series.

[Camden Scott]

For Superman, WB called J.J. Abrams and gave him carte blanche to map out a potential trilogy. Abrams played fast and loose with the mythos. His pitch, titled SUPERMAN: FLYBY, had Krypton not exploding, and Kal-El being sent to Earth by Jor-El and Lara to protect him from Jor-El's evil brother, Kata-Zor, as Clark is prophetized to defeat him.

Clark grows up become Superman, becomes a reporter at the Daily Planet in Metropolis following into the footsteps of his college acquaintance, Lois Lane, and tangles with CIA agent Lex Luthor, who eventually alerts Kata-Zor to his whereabouts. Kata-Zor then sends his son Ty-Zor to kill Superman, leading to a destructive battle in which Superman sacrifices himself to save Lois and perishes from exposure to Kryptonite. After an encounter with his father's spirit in the afterlife, Superman returns to life in time to rally the world's governments into an all-out assault against Ty-Zor and his army, and along the way Luthor reveals himself to be a deep-cover Kryptonian spy.

The script ends with Superman returning to Krypton to face his uncle, with Luthor as his prisoner, and promises of more adventures. And much like BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN, it was expensive as fuck.

Abrams rewrote the script to scale down the budget, removing the invading Kryptonian army, the skyscrapper-sized war machines tearing through Metropolis, and changing Luthor back into his more usual evil human businessman/scientist who hates Superman, albeith one that acquired his genius-level intelligence from mind-melding from a dead Kryptonian and used reverse-engineered Kryptonian technology to build his empire.

[Blake Brown]

Literally better than Snyder.

[Michael Taylor]

McG was called to bring SUPERMAN: FLYBY to life, but dropped out after creative differences with WB, and was replaced by Brett Ratner.

Hartnett was heavily courted to take upon the role of Superman, but he declined, wanting less conventional roles. Beyonce Knowles and Johnny Depp were also courted over the roles of Lois Lane and Lex Luthor. to no avail.

Numerous young actors auditioned for the part, among them Henry Cavill, before Ratner found his guy in Matt Bomer. Robert Downey Jr. and Joel Edgerton were signed to play Lex Luthor and Ty-Zor, while Scarlett Johansson, Shia LaBeouf, Christopher Walken, Anthony Hopkins and Bruce Greenwood were in talks for Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, Jor-El and Jonathan Kent, respectively.

But, once again, things fell apart, mostly over budget and creative differences. Ratner didn't stick around for long, and even though Abrams volunteered to direct it himself, WB declined since he had no directing experience.

The project stalled for a while until Bryan Singer, enjoying his off-time from the X-MEN franchise, pitched his ideal to a sequel/revamp of the classic Richard Donner movies. WB saw potential in the idea and in Singer's solid track record and greenlit what would become SUPERMAN RETURNS, starring Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth and Kevin Spacey.

They thought it'd be bigger, but it wasn't. Especially not with the massive budget it had due to the holdovers of past projects.

[Thomas Ramirez]

There was no Ty Zor in Superman Returns though, only Marlon Brando's ghost and goofy boat action.

[Liam Carter]

Despite a disappointing box office and tepid audience reaction, WB greenlit a sequel to SUPERMAN RETURNS titled THE MAN OF STEEL, to be directed by Singer, who also wrote the script alongside his usual suspects, Evan Dougherty and Dan Harris. Their draft featured Brainiac being lured to Earth by the Kryptonite landmass that Superman hurled into space. Masquerading as a Kryptonian explorer who left Krypton prior to its destruction, Brainiac challenges Superman's role in the world by intervening on human conflicts and using his abilities and technology to cure diseases, end world hunger and other feats Superman was told to avoid by his father, Jor-El, so humanity wouldn't grow reliant on him. Now a social outcast, Superman eventually discovers Brainiac's plans to destroy Earth and has to earn back the world's trust in order to save it.

The original cast was set to return, but the project went through numerous rewrites and false starts as Singer became involved with other projects. It soon became clear that it was just treading water, but it was never riding a wave again, and THE MAN OF STEEL was soon declared dead.

[Jonathan Garcia]

youtube.com/watch?v=3zTi68-B3Js

[Dominic White]

For Batman, WB turned to Darren Aronofsky for writing and directing duties. The result was an R-rated adaptation of Frank Miller's "Batman: Year One", in which Bruce Wayne is a mentally unstable auto-mechanic living in the slums of Gotham City with his surrogate father, Little Al. He adopts the identity of Batman to fight crime, branding criminals with a bat-shaped ring. His Batmobile is a modified Lincoln Continental. His Batcave is an abandoned subway station. His arsenal consists of knives, homemade bombs and other makeshift weapons, and if you thought Zack Snyder's Batman was a little too bloodthirsty, wait 'till you get a load of this guy.

The script also gives its fair share of focus to Detective Jim Gordon, an alcoholic, borderline suicidal honest cop trying to get by in the lion's den and build a better life for his pregnant wife, Ann. Gordon and Batman join forces to take down the city's most notorious crime lord, Enrique Estrada, and uncover a web of corruption that leads directly to the figurehead of everything rotten in the city: The Commissioner of Police, Gillian Loeb.

Aronofsky's draft was very raw, very gritty, and eschews supervillains and elaborate gadgets, though Selina Kyle is a supporting character, with "Catwoman" being a BDSM persona she uses to lure unsuspecting businessmen into a swindle. Needless to say, it wasn't what WB was looking for to relaunch the franchise, and they decided not to go forward with BATMAN: YEAR ONE.

But the idea of adapting Miller's seminal story stuck with them, and they eventually commissioned another script from David Goyer. It was more in-line with what they wanted, and they soon found the right man for the job in Christopher Nolan.

Bale was offered the role of again, and this time he said "yes". The project was named BATMAN BEGINS. The rest is history.

[Anthony Walker]

These ideas are incredibly awful, why is it so hard to come up with decent concepts and stories?

[Josiah Butler]

Because it's incredibly hard to come up with decent concepts and stories.

[Lucas Howard]

Yeah, it has Aronofsky all over it. I like him but it would have altered the franchise irrecoverably.

[Ryan Brooks]

Because doing this shit is hard user. Just ask DC.

[Oliver Ward]

Because all good stories are copyrighted.

[Hunter Johnson]

the stars aligned for Snyder to make the greatest Superman movies of all-time

[Connor Edwards]

I like it how in the 90s-early 2000s people were trying to come up with creative ideas and concepts for superhero films, make it more "adult" and stuff. Then once the Marvel shit really hit the jackpot they realized they can just rehash all the classical stories and adapt old comic books basically 1:1 with no shame whatsoever.

[Alexander Richardson]

Because the superheroes are too well known. The executives have heard and hear literally hundreds of pitches about them, and it results in only the strange (terrible) ones standing out to the executives and getting development support.

[Luis Evans]

that Six Million Dollar Man sound ripoff for the 1979 movie.

[Ryan Walker]

>Jon Peter's notorious demands that Superman doesn't wear tights, doesn't fly and fight a giant spider in the third act, that Brainiac had a sassy gay robot sidekick and fought sentient polar bears, and that Lex Luthor have a pet alien dog.

I can't believe this, I won't

[Angel James]

Holy shit, that sounded amazing HNNGGG

[Samuel Collins]

It's basically Super with Ellen page and whatshisface.

[Dominic Richardson]

>tryhards pretend comics are mature stuff
>only one company understand the true nature of comics
>all their movies print money

Really makes you think...

[Evan Ramirez]

Yea, only good

[Christian Campbell]

>We all know how that turned out...
BORDERLINE. EXPERIMENTAL.
youtube.com/watch?v=m5t9iCnX_JY

[Bentley Thomas]

The Nolan trilogy also made money. Marvel just went balls out with the comic book shit.

[Connor Bailey]

Well that's because Nolan is a smart man but he is not working for them anymore.

[Isaiah Campbell]

youtube.com/watch?v=Wo2KB1dEDdk

[Aaron Ortiz]

No. Also, you're a faggot

[Jose Morgan]

>not working for them
He was the executive producer for both Man of Steel and BvS. He helped with the scripts too.

[Chase Mitchell]

I mean directing.

[Leo Foster]

a million cuts, my fucking head is spinning

[Aaron Gray]

Of course you did, of course you did

[Jacob Evans]

I have a feeling he's responsible for the Martha scene. No way Snyder could pull something that "clever".

[Bentley Reed]

No, no. Best not to contradict the narrative. Marvel never copies anything from anyone ever. They're just the bestest good little boys that ever were.

[Charles Martin]

>JewJew singlehandedly fucking up the characters
colour me surprised

[Michael Morris]

With Superman and Batman in development hell throughout the late 90's and early 2000's, WB tried to branch out to their next most popular character, Wonder Woman, under the supervision of producer Joel Silver.

In 2000, Todd Alcott was hired to write a script, with Sandra Bullock lined-up to star. His draft focused not on Diana Prince, but on Donna Troy, reinvented as Diana's daughter with Steve Trevor. In this version, Diana arrived in Men's World in the 1970's and became a government agent alongside Trevor, who eventually became her husband. After Steve's death, Diana sends Donna away to live an ordinary life in Gateway City, but Donna, an introverted secretary, soon uncovers her heroic legacy and becomes the new Wonder Woman, helping her mother and rugged police detective Mike Schorr to defeat the nefarious Dr. Psycho. In the end, Diana sacrifices herself to save Mike and ascends into Olympus with the other Wonder Women before her, while Donna inherits her mantle.

The script was not particularly well-received, and Laeta Kalogridis was called for a page-one rewrite.

[Eli Howard]

I remember being really pissed the Scarecrow/Harley movie didn't happen.

[Brandon Bell]

Ok.

[Juan Nguyen]

>Sandra Bullock
nope.jpeg.png.exe

[Sebastian Cooper]

OP are you done or can I go to bed

[Jackson Thompson]

Sounds infinitely better than what we got

[Leo Stewart]

Kalogridis' draft was a more conventional adaption of Wonder Woman's origin, with Diana accompanying military pilot Steve Trevor back to Men's World after he crash-lands on Themyscira, only to learn that the god of war, Ares, is engineering World War III in order to take over the world, and adopting the identity of Wonder Woman to stop him. However, true to the mantra that "Hollywood can fix it", the script adds its bizarre wrinkles, such as Ares being less "cunning warrior" and more "tantrum-throwing asshole" and acting way too rapey towards Wonder Woman only to reveal himself to be her father. Those rascal Olympians sure do love their incest.

Kalogridis kept submitting minor revisions over the next years, until BATMAN BEGINS came along and inspired WB to start taking their DC Comics properties seriously. They eventually scrapped her draft and decided to give the project a major overhaul, and called Joss Whedon for writing and directing duties in 2005.

[Asher Ward]

other than
> Lex Luthor breaking out of prison by using his long fingernails to stab prison guards directly into the cortex and control them like puppets.
this sounds like a good flick

[Cooper Scott]

That's incredibly obnoxious

[Chase Walker]

Henry Cavill and Routh.

[Adam King]

Whedon's pitch centered on Diana accompanying Steve Trevor to Men's World on a diplomatic mission, only to learn it is filled with violence, poverty and corruption. She adopts the identity of Wonder Woman to bring justice to crime-ridden Gateway City, and learns that the culprint is Spearhead, a weapons manufacturing corporation whose CEO, Aaron Buchanan, is actually Ares in disguise, feeding off of the havoc he's wreaking. When Ares finds out Diana is interfering with his business, he deploys his cybernetically-enhanced nephew, Strife, to kill her.

Whedon submitted multiple revisions from 2005 to 2007, but could never reach a consensus with WB in regards to the tone and the story. Despite this, WB met with numerous actress to take on the lead role, among them Sarah Michelle Geller, Charisma Carpenter, Taylor Cole, Lake Bell, Katherine McPhee, Jill Wagner, Sophia Bush, Rachel Bilson, Eliza Dushku, Nadia Bjorlin, Rhona Mitra, Priyanka Chopra, Evangeline Lily, Katie Holmes and Megan Fox. Whedon's top choices, however, were reportedly Morena Baccarin and Shannyn Sossamon.

[Lincoln Rodriguez]

>Whedon's top choices, however, were reportedly Morena Baccarin and Shannyn Sossamon.
Too good.

[Joshua Edwards]

In 2005, WB also tapped David Goyer, fresh off of the success of BATMAN BEGINS, to write and direct THE FLASH, starring Ryan Reynolds as Wally West. In Goyer's draft, Wally is bestowed his powers by his uncle, Barry Allen, who sacrifices himself to save Keystone City from mad scientist Victor Vesp. He's reluctant to step up to the plate in fear of tarnishing Barry's legacy, until Vesp resurfaces, now aided by psychotic speedster Zoom, and Wally realizes he's the only one that can stop them. Wally soon discovers that Zoom is Barry's best friend, Hunter Zolomon, who was crippled in the same explosion which killed Barry, and grew bitter Barry would rather pass on the mantle to Wally than him.

Goyer wanted to give the movie the same realism that BATMAN BEGINS was praised for, and called an MIT consultant to help him get the mechanics of superspeed just right. Between 2005 and 2007, he kept submitting revisions based on Warner's notes, but like Whedon they rarely saw eye to eye, and Goyer eventually dropped out.

John Brancato was brought in to write a script more in line with WB's vision, which was rather unusual, to say the last. Wally became a rebellious teenager from an abusive household, who gets his powers in the same lightning storm where his uncle Barry is killed. Years later, Wally is a douchebag motocross pilot estranged from his aunt, Iris West, the mayor of Keystone City, who is herself at odds with businessman Vandal Savage, whose company is polluting the environment. When Iris is also killed by a convenient lightning storm, Wally realizes something is amiss and finds out Savage is an immortal caveman who has created a weather machine to destroy the planet and repopulate it with his mistress, Valeria. He then steps up to become the Flash like Barry before him, and save the world.

Shawn Levy briefly replaced Goyer before dropping out as well. Then along came David Dobkins, who also didn't stick around for long. The script had far too many issues.

[Parker Myers]

And there they were, in 2007. Marvel Studios was ramping up IRON MAN with plans to launch their own cinematic universe, and while THE DARK KNIGHT was halfway through filming, THE MAN OF STEEL, WONDER WOMAN and THE FLASH had stalled. WB decided to forego their caution and swing for the fences. The "Justice League Unlimited" cartoon was big. Kids loved it on TV. Why wouldn't they love it on the big screen?

JUSTICE LEAGUE: MORTAL was born. And as quickly as it came, it went. Originally, WB wanted it to be true spectacle, bringing together Brandon Routh and Christian Bale alongside Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman and Martian Manhunter, who would then get their own spin-off franchises. Kieran & Michelle Mulroney was set to write a script adapting the "OMAC Project" storyline, with Maxwell Lord and Talia Al Ghul as villains.

In the cast, WB wanted Jessica Biel as Wonder Woman, Reynolds back as Green Lantern, Leonardo DiCaprio as Aquaman, Laurence Fishburne as Martian Manhunter, Scarlett Johansson as Talia and Mel Gibson as Lord, plus Kevin Spacey back as Lex Luthor.

The main obstacle? Christopher Nolan. He had a very specific vision for his Batman, and other superheroes were a big no-no for him. He objected vehemently to Bale getting mixed in, and as a result, WB compromised.

Nolan's movies would run their course, and they'd have another Batman in their potential cinematic universe. But first, they needed a director, and after brief negotiations with David Slade and Joe Carnahan (who also met with Marvel to helm THE AVENGERS), they found their man in George Miller.

[Josiah Jenkins]

>Goyer wanted to give the movie the same realism that BATMAN BEGINS was praised for

>Making fucking Flash realistic.

Thank fuck Goyer is gone.

[Jaxon Ramirez]

Imagine being some lowly studio worker and seeing this shit walking down the hallway and thinking that some people tremendously more wealthy than you are or will ever be are honestly thinking that this looks like a perfect fit for a multi million dollar movie and franchise.

[Kayden Green]

>the plot saw Pfeiffer's Selina Kyle relocating to an idyllic, Steppford-esque small town where her wild ways mark her as an outcast. She soon finds out the founding fathers are corrupted and planning to destroy the whole town, and becomes the unlikely hero to save the community.

The starting plot (weird outcast character enters a nostalgic, suburban setting and things go crazy) Is sort of a rehash of Burton projects from the era like Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands and even frankenweenie, but those where among his best, and most comfy to watch. That would've been fun o watch, and a nice skewed take on the whole superhero thing.

Conversely his newer movies have been "relatively normal character entering a weird world where everyone is sooo quirky" which is where things have gone wrong Not to say his older films didn't have some quirks among most of the cast, but it wan't laid on as thick.

[Asher Barnes]

Goyer most likely. He wrote the original BvS script and Terrio rewrote what he could, but Goyer still had co-writer credit for a reason.

[Cooper Murphy]

In the script, Batman creates a spy-satellite, Brother Eye, to monitor Earth's superheroes and keeps detailed files on how to neutralize them should they go rogue, which are stolen by Maxwell Lord, a powerful telepath who wants to use a nanotechnological virus to turn the entire planet into a hive-mind under his control. After a failed attempt to use Batman's counter-measures to assassinate Earth's heroes, they join forces to stop him as the Justice League, facing off against the OMACs, an army of androids capable of adapting to their abilities.

Miller wanted to cast young unknowns for the lead roles, and after a lenghty audition process, settled for D.J. Cotrona as Superman, Armie Hammer as Batman, Megan Gale as Wonder Woman, Common as Green Lantern John Stewart, Adam Brody as the Flash, Anton Yelchin as Kid Flash, Santiago Cabrera as Aquaman, Hugh Keays-Byrne as Martian Manhunter, Jay Baruchel as Maxwell Lord, Teresa Palmer as Talia Al Ghul, Zoe Kazan as Iris West, and Stephen Tobolowsky as Alfred Pennyworth.

However, production faced setbacks from the beginning. The 2009 writer's strike hit it hard, preventing the Mulroneys to revise the script based on WB's notes, leaving it to Miller to do it in order to meet the production schedule. The casting choices faced insane, FANT4STIC-level fan backlash that made the studio jumpy with the prospect of the biggest target audience boycotting it. Miller insisted that they film it in Australia, but the government issued taxes that WB refused to pay up, leading to a months-long dispute in which no one was budging. And all while this was going on, WB was spending mad money with pre-production, going as far as building sets without even having a place to film.

[Levi Garcia]

Terrio honestly strikes me as a huge red flag. He seems like a pretentious idiot who thinks he needs to reinvent the wheel for these characters when we already have decades of material about them.

[David Brooks]

The movie ended up costing millions without even a proper start. Miller compromised to filming in Canada, which required a completely new production schedule and led to numerous other issues. It didn't take long for Miller to drop out, the actors to be let go, and the entire project to be scrapped.

But WB still wanted their own cinematic universe to compete with Marvel's. And for that they needed their own Iron Man, and there was no better option than Green Lantern, who had become very popular in the comics recently. Greg Berlanti, Michael Guggenheim and Michael Green wrote the script, with Berlanti also set to direct, and the movie was greenlit for 2011. However, Berlanti soon dropped out, fearing he wasn't cut out to handle a big-budget blockbuster in his first gig as a director, and WB rushed to find a replacement, eventually settling for Martin Campbell, who did it for the paycheck and didn't even bother to hide it. Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively was cast as the leads per studio demand, although Campbell favored Bradley Cooper and Rose Byrne, and the movie was given a $200 million budget that quickly ballooned up due to their dumbfounded decision to make the entire suit CGI, which proved far more costly and complex than they had anticipated.

Nevertheless, they were so certain of the movie's success they greenlit not only a sequel, but also the next chapter of their DCCU, THE FLASH, both written by Berlanti and Guggenheim, and with Berlanti once again in talks to direct THE FLASH.

[Christian Williams]

i think the complete opposite

[Joseph Evans]

To each their own, Justice League is all on him so we'll see how it goes

[Juan Rodriguez]

When GREEN LANTERN flopped, WB scrapped those plans.

GREEN LANTERN 2, which featured Hal Jordan rallying the Green Lantern Corps to face Sinestro and the Sinestro Corps, was entirely scrapped, nearly sinking Reynolds' career in the process, while THE FLASH, which featured Barry Allen facing off against his mother's murderer, Eobard Thawne, a time-travelling speedster who became stranded in the past after a failed attempt to kill Barry as a child, and engineered his accident as part of an elaborate plan to return home, provided the basis for the popular CW TV show.

WB briefly tried to revive the JUSTICE LEAGUE project once again in 2012, after THE AVENGERS broken box office records, with a script written by Will Beall in which Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash and Green Lantern join forces to fend off Darkseid's invasion on Earth. However, the script was reportedly so subpar none of the directors they approached for the job, among them Ben Affleck, were interested.

Simultaneously, WB was facing a potential lawsuit from the heirs to Superman's creators Jerry Siegel e Joe Shuster that could cost them several pivotal elements of the mythos. One of the ways to avert it was getting a new movie out ASAP. They scrambled to get a script in order, and after getting multiple pitches from numerous scriptwriters and comic book writers, Nolan brokered a meeting between Goyer, who had co-written THE DARK KNIGHT trilogy, and the studio heads to pitch Goyer's draft, MAN OF STEEL, with Nolan agreeing to produce.

The script had issues, but it also had to enter production before deadline. And Zack Snyder proved himself to be the right man for the job by burning through shooting fast ans easy and willing to play ball with the subpar scripts whereas other candidates like Darren Aronofsky and Duncan Jones would take too much time trying to get it right.

And thus came MAN OF STEEL, and the DCEU was born... For better or for worse.

[Landon Johnson]

Nah.

[Henry Barnes]

>No way Snyder could pull something that "clever".

>I have never payed attention to one of Snyder's films

[Jordan Morales]

It's amazing frankly how much Christopher Nolan cuck'd the entire DC cinematic universe to preserve integrity and the moment he was done all integrity was lost. I bet he turned down so much money not letting Bale in Justice League. It never would have worked Bale is too street level like daredevil at least the Nolan version no way he could believably fight someone like Doomsday.

[Samuel Reed]

this literally hurts to watch

[Jonathan Murphy]

there's nothing "borderline experimental" about this

[John Wright]

yes because dc never copies characters or details
truthfully user both companies have been copying each other for a long time
but lets continue to pretend that it matters

[Ian Harris]

I hope they retake this idea for the incoming DCEU reboot

[Isaiah Moore]

It's a RLM joke.

[Bentley Robinson]

dammit. look how close we came a decent justice league movie

[Jace Foster]

>And thus came MAN OF STEEL, and the DCEU was born...

And with it...CAPEKINO

[Jack Sullivan]

And with it...MEMERS

[Hudson Miller]

DUDE BAD BITCHES FIGHTING WITH CGI TOSSED IN LMAO

[Jacob Gray]

holy shit, year upon years of fumbling and they just squat andtake a shit at the starting gate
i had known that the begind the scenes bullshit was bad, but reading all this they need to pull the plug on all the dumbass old execs at wb

[Owen Martinez]

>he thinks it's a meme

Make the jump from Nu-Marvel, faggot, before it's too late.

[Jaxson Peterson]

>implying anything besides watchmen is worth watching
and the only reason that was good was because he literally did it panel by panel

[Chase Bennett]

why a black guy playing hal jordan?

[Tyler Russell]

>he think it's not a meme

[Adam Parker]

>Nick Cage as Scarecrow
Wow that sounds fucking great actually.

[Wyatt Garcia]

>Common as Green Lantern John Stewart
>why a black guy playing hal jordan?
go sit in the corner, even if your trolling that was just to stupid

[Samuel Ramirez]

I actually think this sounds awesome. A movie with Batman being framed due to either Man-bat or Clayface would be cool.

[Brandon Harris]

>tfw we will never get Ray Velcoro as a coked up maniac Batman who calls Robin a fat pussy

We get the world we deserve

[Juan Taylor]

>but reading all this they need to pull the plug on all the dumbass old execs at wb

Considering the WB execs are basically the top of the food-chain, who exactly was supposed to "pull the plug" on them?

[Liam Brown]

>JJ doesn't care about the franchise and its past and shoves everything aside for his fanfiction

what no that's unpo

[Gabriel Evans]

Throughout the 1980's and 1990's, the only DC character aside from Batman and Superman to even come close to a movie adaptation was SGT. ROCK. The movie was produced by Joel Silver and intended to be a vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Several writers such as David Peoples and John Millius and directors such as John McTiernan and Richard Donner were attached to the project.

The basic storyline centered on Lieutenant John Teaberry, an unexperienced soldier who is assigned to the Easy Company under Sgt. Rock's command in the last days of World War II and slowly earns their trust despite initial animosity due to Teaberry being the nephew of an affluent senator and having never experienced combat. The Easy Company is eventually assigned to protect a small town from a Nazi fleet, during which all of its members sacrifice themselves, leaving Teaberry as the sole survivor. He then inherits Sgt. Rock's mission to deliver the dogtags of his fallen comrades to their families back in America.

Schwarzenegger dropped out after numerous false starts to pursue other projects, and SGT. ROCK died along with him, although Silver briefly tried to replace him with Bruce Willis in the lead role, but to no avail.

[Michael Cruz]

Check your facts. Suicide did well at the box office, sadly.