It’s all been a little quiet on the Justice League Of America front for a couple of months now, with one rumour indicating that the George Miller-directed DC superhero mash-up would be affected by the Writer’s Strike.
Certainly, we thought we’d be hearing casting confirmations aplenty now, but so far no white plumes of smoke have been seen billowing from the chimney stacks of Warner HQ to denote the appointments of a new Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern et al.
But, according to an article in New Zealand newspaper, The Dominion Post, work is progressing nicely on the movie, with Weta Workshop now on board and slaving away on the costumes required to bring a group of superheroes to big-screen life.
"They are doing all the costumes and they're doing a brilliant job," said the movie’s producer, Barrie Osborne, speaking to the paper from Sydney, where it will be shot. "A lot of people thought it would be too hard, that you can only make those things in Hollywood."
Osborne also hinted that Weta Digital may do the visual effects for the mega-movie, which Warner Brothers hope will kick-start several new franchises. "George Miller has a great take on the material, so it elevates it to something that's not a comic-book movie," he added.
As ever, when casting news is revealed, we’ll bring it to you. It seems certain that the Justice League movie will reveal a new actor in the role of Superman, as has been the plan all along.
However, there is good news for Brandon Routh, who played the Man Of Steel in Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns. It was rumoured last week that he would no longer play the character in WB’s standalone Superman movies, but Moriarty from AICN has made some calls and is now stating that that’s not the case. Apparently, if a new Superman movie is made, with or without Bryan Singer, then Routh is first on WB’s list.
As far as Empire’s concerned, we still can’t see why Miller and WB don’t just cast Routh – who was the best thing about Superman Returns by a Krypton mile – in Justice League and be done with it. We still say that having two big screen Supermen (Routh and whoever they cast in JLA) and Batmen (Christian Bale and the JLA guy) running around is going to lead to mass confusion and possibly even riots.