Fan-Casting DC's JUSTICE LEAGUE: A Note About the Casting Decisions

Reposted from my other blog, Why I Cry!

How and why did I choose the actors I chose?  First and foremost, it was personal preference.  I like [insert actress name]; I want to use her in the movie; what role could she play?  That simple.

Except not quite that simple, because I made up a few rules for myself.  My DC Cinematic Universe is not a continuation of an established film franchise, which meant no Christian Bale as Batman and no Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern.  I didn’t even want the association with those performances, so I blackballed those actors (and Henry Cavill and Amy Adams) from my cast.  Think of my Justice League as a “total reboot” to borrow an overused term.

I also actively avoided the “Hottest Man in Hollywood” crutch that so many fan-casts and actual casting agencies depend on.  The content of the story and the power of the performance should sell the film better than the bankability of the star (yeah, I’ve already acknowledged that this is an impossible dream).  Therefore, I excluded Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper, too, and crossed my fingers that the sun would still rise in the morning.

Sorry, but this ain't happening.

This same line of thinking also involved picking actors with presence and persona who also don’t necessarily look like twenty-five year old underwear models, a hurdle that was much harder to jump when casting women (Thanks, Hollywood!).

The hardest thing to do was to be truly imaginative and think of someone who hasn’t been thought of.  I probably failed miserably at that task right out of the gate, but I tried to go with less or slightly-less obvious choices.  We all know Michael Fassbender is an outstanding actor, and he has already played one iconic comic book character, so he understands the genre and the sandbox in which he’d be playing.  Does that mean he has to play Batman, though?  Benedict Cumberbatch would make an amazing Sinestro, but haven’t we seen that already?

I meant Khan… well, Sherlock, too.

Eventually, I found the men and women I would want to see playing the heroes and villains of my Justice League movies.  Some choices were natural, almost instinctive, while others I had to talk myself into.  You'll see that for some characters I have included a frontrunner and one or two backups.  This could be because I’m less confident with my final decision, or because I see multiple stars capable of doing something special with the role.

Anyway, that was my process.  I could have shortened this post to say, "It's my prerogative,” but I wanted to set the record straight before the deluge of comments asking why I didn’t pick Matt Bomer and Mila Kunis for Superman and Wonder Woman.

Note: If you have a different actor or actress in mind (such as Matt Bomer and Mila Kunis) for one of these characters, please share your opinion in the comments section below.  Maybe you’ll convince me to change my pick.  Not likely...but maybe.