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].)

THOUGHTS: On Superheroes

It’s curious that news of the gear shifting on both The Flash and Wonder Woman film projects came nearly simultaneously.
The writer/directors who had been steering both projects are now off them (David Goyer and Joss Whedon, respectively), and for pretty much the same reasons, director and studio did not see eye-to-eye on the treatment and approach to the character in question.
Whedon: “We just saw different movies, and at the price range this kind of movie hangs in, that's never gonna work.”
Goyer: “The God's honest truth is that WB and myself simply couldn't agree on what would make for a cool Flash film.”

You gotta wonder, when a studio shoots down projects from established names like Goyer (who wrote the screenplays for Dark City, Batman Begins, and the Blade films) and Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly), just what exactly is the studio’s vision of the character? How different can it be from that of people who are clearly entrenched in genre material? It isn’t like these are rank neophytes, after all.
On the one hand, I can appreciate the caution Warner Brothers and DC are taking with their properties (better taking their time to get it right, rather than Marvel’s trigger-happy film-everything-we-can-now attitude, which has given rise to fiascos like Elektra and Daredevil and Fantastic Four).

Sometimes though, you wonder at a studio’s “vision.” I mean, Batman Forever was bad enough, but whoever greenlit Batman and Robin should be shot.
And this isn’t even about a disgruntled fan: I never got into Buffy or any of Whedon’s other shows, and Goyer is a hit-and-miss affair for me (I love his scripts for Dark City, Batman Begins, and Blade II, but Blade and Blade: Trinity—which he also directed—blew, big time).

This is about getting it right, about being faithful to the source material and treating the character (and by extension, the character’s creators) with respect.
You have to ask yourself, is the studio really concerned with getting it right, or with coming up with a movie that’s designed and calculated to make money?
The thing is, they need to take chances too, and not just stick to what’s been tried and tested and been done to death.

Studios also need to keep the fans in mind, the section of the audience that tends to come back to a film again and again, if it’s done right. (And there’s a lot of revenue that’s made up of repeat viewings.) Which is not to say they should slavishly stick to the source material either, but rather, make a proper translation of said material onto film, retaining and tweaking whatever elements of the character’s mythos works best on the big screen.

In the end though, the proof’s in the proverbial pudding. There is no colour by numbers approach to film adaptations of comic book material (and there shouldn’t be). There is, however, instinct, creativity, and a genuine love and passion for the genre.
So let’s all hope Warner Brothers knows what it’s doing…

(Originally posted 020807)