Rumor: Warner Bros. Taps Nolan, Bale For Justice League

Earnest Cavalli

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Rumor: Warner Bros. Taps Nolan, Bale For Justice League



How do you guarantee that a Justice League movie adaptation will rake in tons of cash at the box office? You hire the people behind The Dark Knight Rises and Man of Steel.

Ever since Marvel Studios set the box office on fire with last summer's massive blockbuster hit The Avengers, Warner Bros. has been working to create its own superhero team movie based on DC Comics' Justice League. If you're unfamiliar with the team, the League would be a group generally consisting of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Flash and that dude who thinks chatting with halibut is a super power. Even pared down from the much larger comic book roster, that's still a lot of heroes to gather in a single film, and as such it comes as little surprise that the WB's efforts to date have almost all been false starts. Seemingly tiring of not making tons of money, Warner Bros. execs have decided to go all out on the project, and to ensure that this thing gets made right, they've hired The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan to oversee the film.

That alone should be reason enough for comic book geeks to wet themselves with glee, but more crucially, Nolan's involvement with the project means that Christian Bale, the world's current favorite cinematic Batman, will almost definitely reprise his role as the Dark Knight in Justice League.

Oh, but that's not all. According to Latino Review, the WB is also quite fond of Zach Snyder's upcoming Man of Steel, and are attempting to bring Snyder on board the project as well. As with the aforementioned Nolan/Bale news, this means that Justice League's Superman will almost definitely be portrayed by British actor Henry Cavill. Cavill's IMDB listing [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0147147/] does little by itself to indicate why this should be exciting, but all reports coming from the WB claim that Man of Steel is not just a good Superman film, it's likely to be the big movie of this upcoming summer movie season.

Rounding out this revelation is word that screenwriter David Goyer is very likely attached to write the script for Justice League. Though you may not recognize his name immediately, Goyer is one of Hollywood's most experienced scribes when it comes to penning good superhero films. IMDB counts [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0333060/] Nolan's Batman trilogy, as well as Man of Steel, Blade II and the surprisingly excellent Blade TV series among his past projects. Granted, Goyer has a few stinkers on his resume, but in most cases the failure of those films had little to do with Goyer's writing talents (see Nick Cage's manic overacting in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance).

Now before you rush off to your social networking client of choice to share this exciting news with all of your geek pals, there are a few caveats to this situation you should be aware of. First, this is technically a rumor. We have no reason to doubt Latino Review as the site is exceedingly on point with information on upcoming superhero movies, but it does currently lack any sort of official confirmation or denial. That said, it should be pointed out that the WB normally jumps all over itself to deny information like this when it's false, yet the company has remained mum on the subject since Latino Review first published its story.

The second caveat should apply to all pre-release information on any film project, but it bears repeating: As Justice League won't hit theaters for years to come, it's quite possible that all of this information could change by the time the movie starts shooting. Why or how that might happen remains a big, bright question mark, but it is a possibility that can't be ignored.

Other than that though, it looks like Justice League will be the superhero film we'd all hoped Warner Bros. would make. When Bale claimed to be done with Batman, it seemed that whenever Justice League finally hit theaters it would be inherently crippled by a lesser Bruce Wayne, but now it appears that the movie has at least one strong leg to stand on. Expect more information to appear soon on which characters Warner Bros. will feature in the film beyond Batman and Superman -- the smart money lists Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and The Flash -- and who might play the antagonist in Justice League. Previous reports pegged Darkseid as the film's big bad, but that would directly ape Thanos' appearance in the upcoming Avengers 2, and if nothing else Christopher Nolan hates the idea of seeming derivative. Given that, it's likely he'd choose a lesser known villain, though who that might be is entirely up in the air.

Personally, I've got my fingers crossed for Mr. Mxyzptlk [http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Mister_Mxyzptlk]. Not only because he'd be an interesting villain, but because I'd love to see Bale attempt to pronounce that name via his trademark guttural, "panther with a throat infection" Batman voice. That seems worth the price of admission alone.

Source: Latino Review [http://latino-review.com/2013/03/03/exclusive-dcu-takeover-huge-developments-justice-league/]

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Vault Citizen

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I'm surprised, I know its just a rumour so nothing has been confirmed but I thought that Nolan and Bale were done with Batman.
 

Atary77

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I'm sorry but after hearing how the people in charge at Warner Bros were confused by the fact that Alan Scott was now gay they were worried if they had to make Hal Jordan gay for the movie. DC had to go explain the differences to them.

I know that could be an honest mistake but if the film makers want to be lazy and do no fact finding on the characters and source material then what hope is there for Justice League?
 

StashAugustine

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No. No. Nononononono. I mean, you can do a grounded, realistic Batman and still have the over-the-top stuff, Arkham City proved that, but Nolan's Batman is not gonna fit in well with the Justice League.
 

Zeraki

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As much as I liked the Dark Knight trilogy, I just can't take Bale's over the top growly Batman voice anymore.

It was especially bad in Rises, where he almost seemed to be going even more over the top due to the fact that Batman is hardly in it. It was borderline self parody.

Can we just get Kevin Conroy to dub over him or something?
 

Rossco64

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I've always thought this was the best way to do it. The Dark Knight trilogy is basicly how Batman would operate in the real world. Man of Steel is how Superman would operate in the real world. This means that in order for a rebooted Batman series to work within the same universe as Man of Steel they would have to go with Batman in the real world once again. Although this way does mean Gotham and Metropolis both look like Chicago :p
 

Adam Jensen_v1legacy

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That's stupid. Nolan's Batman is supposed to be the most realistic version of Batman, meaning that there are no aliens and super powers anywhere near that universe. I thought that his Batman is supposed to be self contained and separated from the rest of DC comics. Fuck the universe if this is true. It sounds horrible.
 

TheRightToArmBears

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Hmmm. For one, I thought Nolan and Bale had both said they didn't want to do it. Also, I really don't think the Nolanverse Batman fits with the wider DC universe, and the trilogy is perfectly self-contained. Plus, where would this put Blake? I assumed he took up the Batman mantle in future if Gotham ever needed Batman again, but surely this means he would have to officially be Robin.
 

Sixcess

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For now this sounds like nothing more than wishful thinking. If they have any sense at WB they won't be making any definite plans until they see how Man of Steel does.

I don't see them pulling it off though...

Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Flash and that dude who thinks chatting with halibut is a super power.
So that's an as yet untested reboot, a very successful trilogy that hugely underplays the 'super' part of superhero, a tv flop, a movie flop, an unmemorable tv show 20 years ago and.... hahaha... no.

It's not much to work with, is it? And if MoS underperforms then this project dies.
 

LavaLampBamboo

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I feel like I have to jump aboard the "This is a bad idea" boat. Batman might work as a gritty serious realistic film, but to include that Batman in a team with an alien, an Amazon, a human with alien powers and a whatever Aquaman is (Atlantean?) would just seem... impossible.

Oh and also...

Earnest Cavalli said:
As with the aforementioned Nolan/Bale news, this means that Justice League's Superman will almost definitely be portrayed by British actor Henry Cavill. Cavill's IMDB listing [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0147147/] does little by itself to indicate why this should be exciting, but all reports coming from the WB claim that Man of Steel is not just a good Superman film, it's likely to be the big movie of this upcoming summer movie season.
What, Warner Brothers are claiming their multi-million dollar film is going to be the best movie of the summer? SHOCKING.
 

ellers07

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Yeah... I'm not too excited about this idea. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed Nolan's Batman, but I'm just not sure you can mix the rest of the Justice League in that universe. The Dark Knight Rises really finished the story of Batman. As many people have suggested in other threads, it's time to start fresh with Batman. Not a new solo movie right away, but just reintroduce him in the Justice League. I think we've got his origin story covered by now anyway.
 

blackdwarf

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ain't gonna work. the fanbases of the movies (guessing at superman) is not the same. batman was more realistic and superman will be more fantastic. avengers worked because all the movies were made with same demographic in mind.
 

Verlander

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Man of Steel looks crap, and if they go with this "dark and growned up" theme for the other films too, then they're totally missing out on why Marvel are winning this game.
 

BrotherRool

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Let Nolan rest, he clearly wants to go off and do his own films, Warner Bros are using his name as a sort of brand identity at the moment and are running it into the ground to bring in cash.

The upside is, he's probably forced them to Greenlight his own projects in return again, so we can have more Mementos and Prestiges and Inceptions
 

Catface Meowmers

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Wait, it was Latino Review that just got done telling us they heard some pretty solid rumors that Marvel was going with Planet Hulk/World War Hulk for Phase 3, and then it turned out no such thing was happening.

Now they expect us to believe something that flies in the face of everything we've heard Nolan and Bale talk about in regards to the Batman movies and franchise?

At this point I'm so burned out on all this Hollywood PR rumormill bullshit I can't even muster the will to debate something so unlikely without at least a little proof.
 

Trishbot

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I'm ready for a "real" Batman movie. Not a movie where Batman happens to be in it and dressed up and growls at people, but the one from the comics and even the Arkham games and 90s cartoon... one who is a DETECTIVE (that's something Nolan's Batman was almost entirely NOT). I'm ready for a Batman who outsmarts his opponents rather than growling and punching them. For one to wear a costume that's not just awfully over-designed mesh body armor with a bat-eared helmet. One who doesn't drive tanks on rooftops, "not" save villains if he has the chance (Batman doesn't let people die, even enemies), retires at every excuse, or make long-winded, growly, inaudible speeches about the duality of man and the nature of morality.

That Batman hasn't been seen on screen since The Mask of the Phantasm. We're long overdue.
 

ShakerSilver

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Earnest Cavalli said:
that dude who thinks chatting with halibut is a super power.
Sometimes I really hate how to this day, Aquaman's time on Super Friends is still what people think about when they hear the character. I mean at the time, he wasn't any sillier than Batman or Superman (i.e. Adam West Batman and Superman's wacky Red Kryptonite transformations), and since the dawn of the Bronze Age of comics, all of DC's characters were being written more seriously, Aquaman included. I mean he's the king of Atlantis for crying out loud, he cut off his own hand to save him and his son from dying at the hands of his brother, not to mention he's also nearly/equally as strong as Wonder Woman, one-third of the DC trinity. You'd think he'd be taken more seriously.

But no, we have meme-spouting shlock like the Big Bang Theory to thank for reminding the general public that Aquaman was once pretty silly, and therefore can never be taken seriously again.
 

Frontastic

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I'm a big Nolan fan and a big fan of his take of Batman... BUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WB DON'T DO THIS.

It just raises too many question and will require too many retcons. If they intend doing this post TDKR, Batman is old and barely standing upright. They could use the eight year gap and go "see, Batman was actually off having Justice League adventures during that time!" but that's stupid too and requires reasons for why they weren't around for TDKR.

On top of that, tonally this won't work. The dark and gritty works fine when you're setting things in the real world which you can do with Batman because he could technically exist (Ha! but ok). It doesn't work for the actual GOD characters and is the prime reason Man of Steel is of such interest. But even IF MoS works, you need a lighter tone when dealing with a big group of superpowered characters like that.

Plus you'll have already written out both Joker and Ra's, two characters which the League would inevitably have come up against at some point. Tower of Babel is SCREAMING to be a JL film plot, provided it actually gets sequels.