DC COMICS: Justice League (Justice League Mortal)

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WHAT WE KNOW:
Mortal began in early 2007, when an article ran in Variety detailing that the studio had just hired Kieran and Michele Mulroney to pen a screenplay for an as-yet-untitled Justice League film. The husband/wife duo had previously written only for television, for such series as Star Trek: The Next Generation (season two's "The Outrageous Okona," actually a personal favorite), Star Trek: Enterprise, NCIS, Seinfeld, ER and a few others. Four months later, another article in Variety by the same reporter revealed that the script had been turned in, had received positive feedback from the studio, and that the film was indeed going to be produced (Variety's website is migrating several years' of articles at the moment, so links are currently unavailable).

Just over three months later, the news came out that George Miller ( Mad Max ,  Happy Feet ) had been hired to direct the film, and that the studio would assign a hefty $220 million budget. Word also came that Warner Bros. was very aware of an impending Writers Guild of America strike, and that it was hoping to get started before it began.

Apparently, both production and postproduction would be handled in Australia. Locations, including colleges were actively scouted. Barrie M. Osborne, a producer on  The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the first  Matrix   film, was named as producer and it was apparently time to figure out who would fill the multicolored boots of DC's premiere superhero team.

Solid news on the film's development is kind of a blur between the announcement of Miller as a director and its eventual cancelation, but there are some consistent names that were floated for the casting of the entire team. The film would've apparently featured the "original seven" lineup of the League, consisting of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman and the Martian Manhunter.

While reportedly hundreds of actors and actresses had tested for the coveted roles, the final picks for each character were apparently as follows: D.J. Cotrona as Superman, Armie Hammer as Batman, Megan Gale as Wonder Woman, Adam Brody as the Flash, Common as Green Lantern (John Stewart), Santiago Cabrera as Aquaman, and Hugh Keays-Byrne as the Martian Manhunter. While the studio tried to keep a lid on the casting, and George Miller expressed confidence that the predominantly very young cast would "grow into their roles," an article from March 2008 appearing in The New York Times detailed that fan backlash was pretty heavy.

As a fan at the time the film was being "made," and upon hearing the names being floated particularly for Superman and Batman, I was a little... put off. I wasn't an angry fanboy by any means, but it seemed a little weird to my 20-year-old brain that the respective "incumbents" for the roles of Batman and Superman (Christian Bale and Brandon Routh) were apparently off the table for their characters' then-next film appearance. At the time, Smallville was still on the air as well and I also thought it strange that Tom Welling's name hadn't cropped up either. Still, I was moderately excited about a Justice League film on the horizon since a superhero team up had never been tried before, but I was a little bit sad at the fact that it would apparently be ignoring the (then-only) Batman film by Christopher Nolan and Bryan Singer's recently released Superman Returns, particularly as a fan that thought Brandon Routh should have another turn as the Man of Steel.

Although there is an old adage that says "no news is good news," this wasn't to be the case for this film. News dropped off into nothing, before final word came down that the project was dead in the water.