Wednesday, October 31, 2007





AFTERTHOUGHTS (20)

20.1 Following the news of the marathon Justice League casting session (check out Afterthoughts (19) in the Archive), WB is going announcement-happy with two new helmers attached to the film adaptations of The Flash and Green Lantern.

First off, The Flash has had a number of names going through its revolving door, from David S. Goyer, to Shawn Levy. Now Levy, who has walked away from The Flash for “undisclosed reasons,” is replaced by David Dobkin.
While Levy has films like Cheaper By The Dozen and Night At The Museum under his belt, Dobkin counts Shanghai Knights and The Wedding Crashers among his credits.
Based on the movies above, it seems WB is moving towards a more comedic approach to the Flash than its other superhero franchises.
Dobkin has confirmed that The Flash will be a direct spin-off of George Miller’s Justice League, and will feature the Wally West incarnation. (It’s interesting to note though that with this set-up, Dobkin has apparently no say in the casting of the Flash, as that decision is currently in Miller’s court.)

Meanwhile, there’s Green Lantern, which has been handed to Greg Berlanti, who helmed The Broken Hearts Club before writing and executive producing such TV fare as Dawson’s Creek, Everwood, Brothers & Sisters, and Dirty Sexy Money.
Berlanti is slated to write the script with Marc Guggenheim (who is also a writer-producer on Brothers & Sisters, and has written Amazing Spider-Man, Blade, and Wolverine comics) and Michael Green (co-executive producer on Heroes, and past writer of the Superman/Batman comic).
It’s unclear at this point whether this is also a Justice League spin-off, as the Variety story only mentions the Hal Jordan Green Lantern, while Miller’s Justice League will be featuring the John Stewart Lantern.

While I’m not particularly a fan of either, and thus not overly thrilled at having Dobkin and Berlanti handling DC’s upcoming salvoes in the live-action superheroics war with Marvel, I am slightly more excited about Green Lantern, as it’s got Michael Green working on the script.
Here’s hoping both films keep on running smoothly from here on out.

20.2 In other Justice League-related news, casting rumours continue to float, in the absence of official word from WB about Miller’s final choices.
A short-lived rumour concerning Hellboy’s Rupert Evans as Superman was quickly debunked, while more recently, The Grudge 2’s Teresa Palmer has been reported as Miller’s choice for Wonder Woman. (The latter rumour has yet to be confirmed or debunked.)

(Images courtesy of the-trades.com [David Dobkin], abc.com [Greg Berlanti], comicworld.gr [Rupert Evans], and askmen.com [Teresa Palmer].)

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