Justice League Movie?

I have a bit of a thing for superhero movies. Hell, who doesn't? And just lately we've all been pummeled with many tremendous superhero movies. Sure, there are films like Green Lantern that make us wonder if there is any sanity left in The world, but then movies like The Dark Knight and The Avengers send us into a sense of tremendous awe and wonderment. We are truly in a golden age of superhero movies. Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, Iron Man, Iron Man II, The Avengers, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, X-Men, X2, and X-Men: First Class (assuming what I've been told is correct) are all very good movies and some of them could even rank among the greatest films of all time. Face it, we are spoiled. With The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spider-Man coming out and Iron Man 3, Thor 2, Captain America 2, and The Avengers 2 on the horizon it can only get better. Unlike most sequel films, these superhero sequels are at least as good as the originals if not too much worse. We are getting quality and quantity.

I'm waiting for the day a Justice League movie gets made. Yeah, anything that has Superman in it since Superman 2 seems to be doomed, but Marvel's crop of Avenger movies have proven that it can be done. Of course, it would be difficult to do. Marvel has chosen to be more light-hearted in tone and that makes the movies fun and audience-friendly. It's a walking comic book. DC has chosen, perhaps wisely after debacles like Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, to strip all of the comic book elements from the movies and leave only the stark elements to make the movies seem more realistic. It works for The Dark Knight, but could that same approach work for a Justice League movie? I don't think so. Especially when it seems that Christian Bale says he will not be in another Batman movie and the director of the film says that The Dark Knight Rises will indeed be the last.

So that would require a lot of reboots, wouldn't it? We'd also require a Wonder Woman movie, a reboot of Green Lantern, a reboot of Flash Gordon, a reboot of Superman (I think we should assume that the upcoming Superman movie Man of Steel won't have the Justice League in mind, either. So that would mean yet another reboot), and then a reboot of Batman (I think there is probably one on the way anyway, but that's probably more of a cash-grab off the Nolan-Bale Batman movies than anything else). So the big question is... is there any studio prepared to really go for the Justice League? Can it be done? Marvel had a serious advantage when they made their Avenger movies because none of those characters had ever graced the big screen before. Okay, well, the Hulk had been done before with Eric Bana, but those were not exactly big shoes for the Norton-driven vehicle to fill.

We are actually talking about dethroning The Dark Knight here. One of the greatest comic book adaptations and greatest movies of all time. Would you want to be that guy? Forget Heath Ledger's Joker and everything Chris Nolan did for the franchise because we need a new Batman movie that will actually fit into a Justice League kind of mold. More than that, we are talking about linking all of these proposed movies in such a way that Marvel did. They've got to be puzzle pieces that don't give an entire story away, but enough of it each time to where you can see that there is indeed a bigger story and not just a bunch of heroes accidentally running into each other. This has to be carefully planned out and it will take years to do it right.

DC dropped the ball with Green Lantern and Superman Returns so, if they start today and work at the same pace, they'll be half a decade behind Marvel's The Avengers. 

I think The Dark Knight Rises will be a key turning point. No one expects it to be as good its predecessor (or at least they shouldn't), but they expect it to be great. If it is then that'll make work on a Batman reboot even harder, but if it isn't then it'll certainly soften the blow and lower expectation level just a bit. Not that I'm rooting for The Dark Knight Rises to fail, mind you. I'm just stating the obvious.

It'll be interesting to see if it happens, but I'm not holding my breath. I think Justice League will probably get made when Stephen King's Dark Tower series gets made: probably never.