Something something....Darkseid (JL Movie)

[Tev]

No Darkseid, at least not one announced yet, but a Justice League Movie is officially on the way.

Zack Snyder will direct the long-rumored Justice League movie for Warner Bros. immediately following his work on "Batman vs. Superman," this according to Ben Fritz of The Wall Street Journal. That report corroborates similar stories posted by Latino Review in January of this year and The Hollywood Reporter in July of 2013.

No release date has been set just yet, but it's expected that "Justice League" could arrive in theaters as early as 2017. Snyder's "Batman vs. Superman" film is set for release on May 6, 2016, the same day as "Captain America 3."

"['Justice League'] will be a further expansion of this universe," Greg Silverman, president of worldwide production for Warner Bros., told The Wall Street Journal. "'Superman vs Batman' will lead into 'Justice League.'"

Ben Affleck stars in the franchise as Batman, with Henry Cavill playing Superman and Gal Gadot set to embody Wonder Woman. Other members of the Justice League expected to be cast include Green Lantern, Flash and Aquaman. No actors have been set just yet, but TheWrap's Jeff Sneider passed along a rumor that Matt Damon, Affleck's long-time friend, could be considered for Aquaman. It's unclear if Ryan Reynolds, who starred as Green Lantern in the infamous 2011 flop "Green Lantern," will reprise his role for "Justice League."

So, bets on this mess? Really, I feel that Ryan Reynolds should just pretend that mess of a Green Lantern movie never happened and attach himself more securely to Marvel's Shooting Star as Deadpool. Though I'm not sure if he can do that because he was only Deadpool in the X-Men movies and I'm not clear on if Fox still owns the rights to the X-Men characters or if Marvel can make a Deadpool movie on their own now...

[Sithdarth]

TheWrap's Jeff Sneider passed along a rumor that Matt Damon, Affleck's long-time friend, could be considered for Aquaman.

Oh man Aquaman is like the worst character in the DC universe (barring Aquaman from Batman the Brave and the Bold where he was awesome). You definitely don't want to be playing live action Aquaman if you want your career to survive.

[RickZarber]

But could you imagine how amazing Matt Damon playing a campy, live action Brave and the Bold-esque Aquaman would be?

But no, DC is all about the SUPERHEROS IS SERIOUS BIZNUSS, if the Dark Knight trilogy and Man of Steel are any indication of overall tone going forward. The idea of them trying to ground Aquaman in "realism" (read: silly plots just Dark, Gritty, and angsty) does not encourage. Though I guess it would be a toss up whether you get clean-cut boring heroic Aquaman or badass, bearded, xenophobic Aquaman.

Really, that expands to any concerns I have about the franchise overall. I found MoS to be joyless, and I kind of doubt they're going to lighten things up as we go.

[Aerozord]

Then what about the DCAU Aquaman, he was all grim and broody

[edit] and I hope Deadpool is owned by Fox. They are doing Days of Future's Past, so good chance they have Cable and who wouldn't want a Cable & Deadpool movie

[RickZarber]

He was, but he was grimmer and broodier than pretty much everyone else by comparison. I just fear that'll be par for the course in the movie...

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Originally Posted by Aerozord

[edit] and I hope Deadpool is owned by Fox. They are doing Days of Future's Past, so good chance they have Cable and who wouldn't want a Cable & Deadpool movie

They do still own the rights to Deadpool, and pretty much any and all mutants, with a few exceptions being Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, who are a grey area that both Fox and Marvel are using. No sign of Cable in the next movie yet though, and the sequel is already being set up as Age of Apocalypse, so I doubt a full blown Cable/Deadpool movie is coming any time soon.

But this is a DC thread and, meh. I never really did care much for DC and none of their movie attempts have intrigued me in the slightest. They keep constantly pushing Superman, who's boring, and Batman, who's pretty much been done to death by now and is getting boring, whereas Marvel are on to making ridiculous space-fantasy-western-comedy-I-don't-even-know-whats with gun toting racoons and talking tree people and being generally awesome across the board.

[Aerozord]

Thats the problem, between Marvel and DC, DC is more light-hearted. These were heroes thought up doing the golden age and early silver age. The Justice Leagues first foe was a freakin space starfish. You need to balance it, if you take the premise too seriously you just show off how stupid and silly it actually is.

Marvel movies work because they know to have humor and light-heartedness. The heroes have fun, and poke fun at each other. The most poorly received Marvel movie, the Hulk, was also the most grim-dark. That should tell you something. Not that DC cant do this, DCAU matched this balance much more consistently than the Marvel movies do in my opinion. If they just lighten up the movies will be vastly better.

[mauve]

DC is still trying to figure out why "gritty and dark" made the Dark Knight one of the highest grossing movies it's evermade, but didn't work for Man Of Steel. In all honesty, Dark Knight worked for a number of reasons: one being that Batman, having no actual superpowers, fits well into a darker and more "realistic" universe. The other reason was that at the time, the super dark and gritty hero story for a well known character like Batman was fairly novel. It had been done with "safer" comic heroes who didn't already have a huge fanbase, so it was really quite a risk and was a retelling of the Batman story in a manner which most non-comic-readers didn't expect. But now it's old hat and tiresome. Everybody's done it and the novelty has worn off.

Marvel, on the other hand, is taking risks in going the other direction, and for the moment it's been paying off. Avengers had a good mixture between silliness and seriousness, and focused more on the characters' motivations and interactions-- Bruce Banner's fear of connecting with others and his attempted suicide, Cap's difficulty coping with the sheer culture shock of losing half a century, etc. It wasn't prominent enough to drag the story into a sob fest, but it added personality to the charactersand made them more relatable. And that's part of why Avengers worked so well. There's a lot of ways a movie about six individual super heroes could've fallen flat, and while the movie wasn't perfect, it worked REALLY WELL. I sincerely doubt the Justice League movie will be able to compete, unless DC changes its writing tactics.

[Aerozord]

Juxtaposition. Your drama will have no weight if its just dark and heavy all the time.

[Sithdarth]

The most poorly received Marvel movie, the Hulk, was also the most grim-dark.

The really silly thing is that most of the straight to DVD Hulk animated movies aren't horrible. Also, Hulk from The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes! was pretty awesome. There are two things all these Hulks have in common. The first is someone to talk to and the second is the ability to say more than "Hulk Smash!" I watched the Rise of Technovore recently and by far one of the best things about that was the banter between the Hulk and Iron Man.

Without the ability to speak full sentences the Hulk is just an unsympathetic ball or rage with no personality. Basically he just becomes a walking excuse to make pretty special effects and you can't make a movie out of that.

Whoops, didn't mean to rant.