With Mad Max: Fury Road reminding everybody of what a visionary director George Miller is, his now defunct Justice League: Mortal is in the ...
With Mad Max: Fury Road reminding everybody of what a visionary director George Miller is, his now defunct Justice League: Mortal is in the public eye again, now as a subject of a proposed documentary chronicling it’s development and cancellation (very much in the same vein as The Death of Superman Lives, which shed light on Tim Burton’s Superman movie starring Nicolas Cage). Set for release in 2009, it was meant to be the beginning of new franchise featuring Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and the rest of DC Comics’ pantheon of super heroes, completely separate from Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight saga which was then just beginning. Filming was set for Miller’s native Australia, with Weta handling the special effects, and a good chunk of the cast had been found with Armie Hammer set to don Batman’s cowl, G.I. Joe: Retaliation’s D.J. Cotrona signed on as Superman, Adam Brody as The Flash, Fury Road’s Megan Gale as Wonder Woman, rapper Common playing the John Stewart version of Green Lantern, and Jay Baruchel menacing the team as lead villain Maxwell Lord. Though not confirmed, frequent Miller collaborator, and Immortan Joe himself, Hugh Keays-Byrne was rumoured to be portraying the Martain Manhunter, a character I doubt we’ll see in Warner Bros.’ new gritty and grounded DC Cinematic Universe.
From what we saw and heard from the picture pointed to a lighter and more comic book inspired tone than what was Nolan was weaving with Batman, but the 2008 writers strike severely hurt it’s development, pushing back filming on multiple occasions, and the final nail in the coffin came when Warner Bros. decided to focus on Nolan’s Batman movies in the wake of The Dark Knight’s success. Now, building hype for the documentary, director Ryan Unicom has released some unseen concept art through the movie’s official twitter account, giving us a look at Wonder Woman in action, a mould of Martian Manhunter’s head, and Miller’s vision of Aquaman, who was never cast, which is a million miles away from Jason Mamoa’s version of the character we’ll see in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Check them out below for a glimpse of what could have been.
