Fan-Casting DC's JUSTICE LEAGUE: Part 5

Click here to review Part 4.

So far:

Someone stole a sample of kryptonite from the S.T.A.R. Labs in Gotham City.  22,000 miles above Earth, an orbiting space station monitors movement at the edge of the solar system.  Commander Blake secretly sabotages the station, ejecting its escape pods, which each carry a mysterious cargo.  Superman catches the falling space station and saves the crew.

Pics of Kanye and Kim's daughter
in a solid gold onesie on page 4.

The rescue is intercut with shots of Lois Lane (Jennifer Carpenter) writing the story and the headline popping up on The Daily Planet's website.  We see it picked up by television news, and a montage of footage showing Superman (Jon Hamm) shaking hands with the Middleton Space Center's mission director, Dr. Saul Erdel.  We see Commander Blake interviewed.  We see the space station wreckage.  We also see reactions of people watching the new.  Lois Lane, Perry White, and other reporters at The Daily Planet.  Lex Luthor watching from his office in LexCorp Tower in Metropolis.  And John Jones watching the footage somewhere on the street as the news is broadcast on a large screen outside a building, like in Times Square.

(I'll get to who plays Lex Luthor and John Jones later when they are officially introduced.  The problem with this montage is when and how to establish our change of setting.  Lois, Lex, and Jones are in Metropolis, when before this we've spent all our time in Gotham or in space.  A nifty title card identifying the city would be useful, but equally confusing since we're jumping right back to Gotham now.)

The news montage concludes with Bruce Wayne (Richard Armitage) and Lucius Fox watching the news in a Fox's office or a conference room in the Wayne Enterprises building in Gotham.*

Lucius Fox (Ernie Hudson)

Following Morgan Freeman is a tall order for anyone, but Ernie Hudson has the most critical quality in taking up the role of Lucius Fox: affability.  Hudson is likable, and you want to watch what he's doing.  Since the days of Ghostbusters (1984) and The Crow (1994), he has consistently popped up in big and small screen projects, but for the life of me, I haven't seen many of them.  This was mostly a nostalgic choice.

Lucius Fox is the CEO of Wayne Enterprises, managing the business so Bruce Wayne can bounce around the globe, cultivating his playboy facade.  Fox knows the truth about Bruce, though, and he also functions as a weapon smith and tech guru for Batman.  Because, y'know, running a billion dollar corporation affords him a lot of free time to design Bat-planes!

So Lucius and Bruce are watching the coverage of Superman saving the space station in Lucius' office. They trade idle speculation on the source of Superman's powers; Lucius "modestly" acknowledges his own mechanical genius, while admitting he couldn't replicate those powers for Bruce without putting him in an exo-suit the size of a car.

They talk of Lucius' upcoming business trip to Metropolis.  Wayne Enterprises is involved in a joint venture with LexCorp to produce automated drones for construction and excavation.  Lucius is going to the factory in Metropolis to survey the product.  Bruce tells him to watch Lex Luthor and the numbers very closely.  He doesn't trust Luthor; he knows Lex wants to militarize the drones and sell them to the Army.  (Maybe Lucius plays the Devil's advocate and asks Bruce to consider what an army of Bat-drones could do for protecting Gotham.  Bruce shuts that idea down hard.)

As they leave the office, Lucius asks Bruce why he doesn't join him on the trip.  Bruce says he doesn't like Metropolis.  "Everyone likes Metropolis," Lucius says.

Bruce: "It's too…"
Lucius: "Clean?"
Bruce: "No."
Lucius: "Bright?"
Bruce: "Lucius."
Lucius: "Happy?"
Bruce (pause): "Antiseptic."

They get into the elevator and Lucius asks about Bruce's plans.

Bruce: "I'm meeting someone tonight."
Lucius: "Business or personal?"
Bruce: "With this one… I've never been sure."

The elevator door closes and we--

Cut To: Catwoman sneaking into a penthouse apartment that night.


Catwoman/Selina Kyle (Katie McGrath)

I wasn't a big fan of BBC's Merlin series, but I could watch every episode for Katie McGrath.  The actress who plays Catwoman needs that power.  She needs to steal the show for all five minutes she's on screen.

Catwoman is all sexuality.  Whether she's playfully drawing the Dark Knight out of his armor with just a whip and her eyes, or vamping in a skintight leather bodysuit, every move Selina Kyle makes is part of a game.  McGrath can play cunning, deceitful, wanton--the smartest person in the room who's crazy-sexy and she knows it.

We meet Catwoman breaking into a lavish suite that occupies the entire top floor of a skyscraper.  She effortlessly sidesteps the security alarms, laser motion sensors, etc. and finds the wall safe.  Without much trouble, she opens the safe and withdraws a handful of jewels.

Batman's shadow falls over her.  She's surprised to see him, but won't show it for more than a fraction of a second.  She attempts to justify her thievery that the rich man who bought these jewels for his mistress is a bad guy.  Maybe they're blood diamonds or whatever.  Batman calls her on it, asking if she plans to fence the jewelry and give the money to children in need or something.

"I'm getting mixed signals from this chick."

After a bit of flirting and fighting and flirting whilst fighting, which may involve fleeing the penthouse after tripping the alarms and chasing across rooftops, Batman tells her he needs to know the name of the thief who broke into S.T.A.R. Labs the night before.  Catwoman tells him to give her a week.  Batman wants the name tonight.

Cut to Catwoman strutting through a loud night club.  This should be as racy as it can be without making the movie inappropriate for kids.  So instead of strippers, women might be dancing in cages (perfectly appropriate for all ages).  Catwoman walks in like she owns the place, making a direct line for a guy in the back.  People notice her.  Musclemen and bodyguards get her in way.  She disarms and immobilizes them all without breaking stride.

(I hear Roxette's "The Look" playing loudly in the club during this scene.)

Catwoman finds her target, a shifty-looking snitch, wraps her whip around his neck and drags him into the manager's office, again without ever losing momentum.  She kicks the door shut.

Back to Batman and Catwoman on a rooftop.  She shows him the file of the man he's looking for on a tablet or smartphone.  She reveals he's an ex-military mercenary named John Corben.**

John Corben/Metallo (Michael Biehn)

Metallo is my favorite Superman villain, and failure of imagination is the only explanation I can think of why he hasn't appeared in any of the six Superman films to date.  He's a cyborg with the brain of a killer named John Corben, and his cold mechanical body is coated with synthetic skin.  Sound familiar?  (Before you accuse me or DC of ripping off the King of the World, understand that Corben's story predates James Cameron's film by a couple decades.)  Now take all the good stuff you know about the Terminator and give him a heart of kryptonite: that's Metallo!

For the purposes of this story, John Corben is former Special Forces turned mercenary, and perfectly human.  For now.  I'll get into the Metallo-ness of his persona when that part of the story presents itself.

Did you catch those references to The Terminator and James Cameron before?  Totally intentional, as was the decision to cast  Michael Biehn as Corben.  Biehn is a veteran of three Cameron films, he's played a soldier in those and other movies, but mostly it's the Terminator connection that tickles me.  Ah, the sweet reversal of the all-too-human hero of the first Terminator becoming a very Terminator-like villain so many years later.

On the roof, as Batman reviews the file on Corben, Catwoman points out that his presumed base of operations is Metropolis.  Catwoman asks Batman if he's leaving town will he bring her back something shiny to play with.  Batman says, "Behave yourself, Selina," leaps from the roof with cape spread like wings, and glides away.

To Be Continued…

* The scene with Bruce Wayne and Lucius Fox is presumably the only scene in Gotham City set during the day up to this point.  Depending on the windows and natural lighting in the office, though, I would want the outside to appear overcast or even rainy.  We're in Gotham for most of the first half hour of the movie and I want to clearly define it as the Dark City in contrast to Metropolis that we'll spend most of our time in for the rest of the film.  Metropolis will have lots of daytime scenes, and even at night, it's brightly lit and flashy--something Batman will hate.

** At one point, I thought of making the thief Carl Sands, also known as Shadow Thief, but I chose Metallo because I wanted moviegoers to know Superman has more enemies than Lex Luthor and General Zod.

Fan-Casting DC's JUSTICE LEAGUE: Part 4

Click here to review Part 3.

So far:

Batman captured Mister Freeze and returned stolen technology to S.T.A.R. Labs.  Once there, he discovered that Freeze's heist was a ploy to distract the police while a second criminal stole the lab's stock of kryptonite.  The lead scientist tells Batman that kryptonite comes from outer space.

Outer Space.

An advanced deep-space observation station hovers in orbit above Earth.  It's manned by a crew of half a dozen or so, led by Commander Blake.  Initially, all we'll know about Blake is that he's kind of shifty, and he has some nefarious goals.  By the end of the first movie, we'll see he is actually an shape-changing alien named Commander Blanx.

Commander Blake/Blanx (Thomas Kretschmann)

Thomas Kretschmann is one of those actors who turns up in tons of movies and TV and looks familiar but you can't really remember where you saw him before.  That makes him perfect for a shape-shifting sleeper agent who becomes the vanguard of an alien invasion.  Also he's German so, y'know, bad guy.

One of the junior crew members reports to Blake about some unidentifiable movement at the fringe of the solar system.  He's convinced there's something out there, but Commander Blake discredits his report.  After the briefing, Blake sequesters himself on a different part of the station.  We see him do some secretive stuff, placing mysterious containers into escape pods, and then entering a password into station's computer.

A few moments later, the station is rocked by a series of catastrophic explosions.  Blake pretends to be  surprised and orders the crew to the escape pods, but the pods have already launched and are heading to the surface.  They crew is cut off, separated, but Blake and a few make it to a secure part of the station as it tumbles out of its orbit and begins to plummet toward Earth.  As the crew brace for atmospheric reentry, convinced they're all going to die, one of them looks out the nearest observation port and sees hope racing up to meet them.

This one's for all the super-foot fetishists out there.

The orbital space station conducts scans of local- and deep-space before transmitting its data back to the surface.  That data is received at the Middleton Space Center, a large complex that looks and feels a lot like the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida.  (I wish I had a name for the space station/project, but at the moment I can't think of anything like this from the DC Universe that I could repurpose.  If anyone reading this wants to suggest something, leave a comment and I might incorporate your idea.)

As the scenes aboard the space station unfold, both before and during its catastrophic accident, we intercut with scenes at the space center.  Maybe a title card flashes across the corner of the screen, saying: Middleton Space Center, 30 Miles South of Metropolis or something.

Dr. Saul Erdel (Bob Gunton)

The Mission Director for the project is Dr. Erdel.  Erdel's role in DC Comics was very short-lived, but linked intimately with the origin of the Martian Manhunter.  I'm changing that origin, though, so the role of Erdel is a lot more… Well, I won't beat around the bush.  The character is pretty radically altered, so much that I'm basically using his name only as fan-service to the nine Martian Manhunter fans in the world.  I picked Bob Gunton because I like his look for a NASA-type mission controller, but really so many great actors could do this part.  For more diversity, I could also see Miguel Sandoval or Richard Gant in the part.

Erdel and everyone in the control room at the MSC are watching when the space station begins to come apart.  They look on helplessly.  Then one of sensor operators shouts up to Erdel that he's got an unidentified object on an intercept course with the space station.

Cut back to the space station, falling.

Daa-da-da-da-da, DAA-daa-daa!

Like a second son cresting over the curved horizon, Superman (Jon Hamm) races up from Earth to catch the falling space station.  Big action scene as Superman must slow the massive station's descent as parts of it continue to explode and break up in reentry.  Most of the crew is in the command pod/bridge, but one unlucky crewman (the same junior officer who reported movement on the fringe of the system) was caught in a different part of the station.  A wall collapses and the crewman is sucked out into the vacuum.

As Superman struggles to wrangle the space station, he sees the crewman spinning off.  The man is already caught by Earth's gravity, so he's falling and starting to burn up from atmospheric reentry.  Superman grimaces and abandons the space station to its fall.  He flies over and catches the crewman.  As the heat and friction begin to scorch the young man, Superman counteracts the burning with his freeze breath.  I have no idea if this science works out or not, but I'd love to see it.

When they're low enough that the crewman isn't in danger of burning up, Superman throws the man on his back and tells him to hold on tight.  Then Superman races back to the still-plummeting space station.  With the man on his back, arms wrapped tight around his neck, Superman grabs what's left of the space station and begins to halt its fall.  The remaining crew inside the bridge might be able to see him through the observation port.  They're equal parts panicked and awestruck at the circumstances, all except Commander Blake.

"Thank the stars my Pa wasn't ashamed of my powers
or you'd all be dead!"

With a healthy dollop of explosive debris and wreckage strewn across the landscape, Superman manages to bring the space station's control pod safely to the surface near the Middleton Space Center.  The crew is hurt but alive.  Emergency Rescue vehicles are visible in the distance rushing toward the survivors.

What might be cool, as long as it doesn't detract from the action, is to intercut the above rescue scene with a flurry of shots of Lois Lane typing an article on the rescue.  This isn't to give the impression that she's writing the article as the event is happening, but pretty soon after, to show how quick the media in general and Lois in particular are at reporting Superman's exploits.  Quick shots of Lois' fingers assaulting the keyboard with the ratatatat of a machine gun; quick shots of words scrolling across the computer screen, describing the action of the scene; quick shots of her fierce, beautiful eyes; and finally, as Superman scans the wreckage and ensures that everyone is safe, even as emergency vehicles swarm on the crash site, we get a shot of The Daily Planet front page, the headline: SUPERMAN SAVES SPACE STATION CREW (something like that).

Lois Lane (Jennifer Carpenter)

Why did Superman fall in love with Lois Lane?  She's beautiful but she's not the most beautiful woman in the world--that honor goes to Wonder Woman.  Now granting the premise that if Superman wanted Wonder Woman he could have her (personally, I think she could do better) what makes Lois so special?  More than anything, it's a case of brains being sexy.

Lois has Pulitzer Prize-winning brains.  She didn't need to follow her father into the Army to command a heavy armored division, she could do that by the time she was in high school.  She writes with the fire and poetry of an Aaron Sorkin monologue and the direct conviction of a Rachel Maddow monologue.  She has more talent than any journalist Clark Kent has ever met and more confidence than any villain Superman ever fought.

Superman loves Lois Lane because while he may be bulletproof, she's the one who's fearless.  If she were a superhero, she would have a Green Lantern ring.  Superman loves Lois for the same reason she loves him: anything less than the Man of Steel wouldn't be good enough for her.

Watching Dexter, the first thing I notice about Jennifer Carpenter isn't her beauty but her attitude and her toughness.  Her beauty is third.  That's the order I want audiences notice Lois Lane's characteristics.  The biggest hurdle for playing Lois Lane, I think, is making her assertive and dominant without coming off like a bitch.  The character debuted in 1938 when women journalists weren't so commonplace.  She had to talk fast and spar with her editor in order to be taken seriously and justify her place in a man's job.  But that's not world of today, so she has to play slightly tomboyish without being masculine.  Carpenter can be rowdy and acerbic, but she can be vulnerable and feminine, too.  She can't drop any F-bombs in Justice League, but I want to believe she can start a bar fight and then glow when Superman kicks down the door to defend her.

Perry White (Tim Matheson)

Perry White suffers the unfortunate distinction of not being J. Jonah Jameson.  I'm probably wasting an actor like Tim Matheson on a thankless role.  Perry won't have much of a presence in the Justice League movies, much like Commissioner Gordon.  He might have a short dialogue scene or two, mostly serving as a sounding board for Lois and Clark.  Then he'd have some reaction shots as the world goes to Hell in the second and third films.  I really enjoy Tim Matheson, though, and want to use him.  And who knows, he could probably throw some of Lois' smart-ass quips back at her.

To Be Continued…

Media Monday and New Fifty-Tuesday Going On Hiatus

The fan-casting project that I've begun for the Justice League movies has gotten much bigger and also more fun than I anticipated.  As such, that's what I'm going to be focusing on until it's done.

This means no reviews of Birds of Prey or Arrow or other Black Canary-centric material for the time being.

I hope you follow my fan-casting posts and enjoy what comes next!

Fan-Casting DC's JUSTICE LEAGUE: Part 3

Click here to review Part 2.

Act I:  Gotham

Mr. Freeze and his gang are robbing the S.T.A.R. Labs facility in Gotham City.  The alarm has been tripped.  Security guards arrive and are quickly frozen in solid ice by Freeze's cold gun.  We make it clear right away that this is not the Arnold Schwarzenegger Mr. Freeze. No puns with this guy.  This is much closer to the Paul Dini Mr. Freeze, that is to say, the character as depicted in Batman: The Animated Series and the video game Batman: Arkham City.

Mister Freeze/Victor Fries (Matt Frewer)

I tried not to make any casting decisions based on looks alone, but when an actor happens to look like the walking undead, well, it's pretty easy to slot him into the character space.  The rest was trying to convince myself that Matt Frewer couldn't play the part, and no such evidence presented itself.

If you're not as familiar with the character, Victor Fries was a brilliant scientist whose wife, Nora, was dying of an undiagnosable and incurable disease.  Victor put Nora in cryogenic stasis until he could find a cure.  Unfortunately, he had to steal money and resources from the company that employed him. When Victor was caught, there was a laboratory accident involving crazy comic book science that resulted in Victor needing to wear a special cryo-suit to keep his body temperature below zero degrees or he'll die.  Still obsessed with saving Nora, he now, under the alias Mister Freeze*, he robs and steals in order to fund his research in the hope of one day finding the cure and resurrecting his wife.

I'll note right here for anyone with too much or not enough imagination that the men in Mister Freeze's gang look like any other hoods.  They're not dressed like Santa's elves, they don't wear ice-skates, or parkas--normal black clothes will suffice.

S.T.A.R. Labs is the global leader in Scientific and Technological Advanced Research, hence the acronym, with facilities all over the world, including Gotham City and Metropolis.  Freeze breaks into the Gotham labs to steal a bit of experimental technology that he believes will cure his cryogenically frozen wife, Nora, from her fatal disease.  The name of the technology doesn't matter, so I'm just going to go ahead and call it the McGuffin.  Freeze breaks into the laboratory and takes the McGuffin.  Along the way he and his crew might encounter building security and Freeze shoots them with his freeze-gun, covering them with ice.

(Icing the security guards could play out several ways: On one hand, freezing the cops to death could look utterly horrifying, especially if Freeze or part of his gang pushes over the frozen body and it shatters into pieces like the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgement Day.  This could establish the genuine danger level of Mister Freeze and give him some credibility amongst viewers who only know him from Batman & Robin.  On the other hand, I want this movie to be accessible to kids without too much gratuitous death, so maybe it's enough that Freeze immobilizes the guards by freezing their arms and legs.  On yet a third hand, I was a child when I saw the smoldering corpses of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru in Star Wars and that didn't scar me for life, so maybe I'm being overly sensitive.)

At some point during the heist, an alarm is tripped.  Mister Freeze and his crew are coming out of the building as a handful of GCPD squad cars roll up to intercept them.  Gotham police aren't chumps; they are not the Keystone Cops (unlike the police in the city of Keystone, which we'll visit in film #2), but in this case they are outmatched.  Mister Freeze makes his way past the police like the Terminator in the lobby at Skynet in T2.

(I swear, I'm not trying to draw all of these Schwarzenegger comparisons to Mister Freeze.  I want you to forget all about his portrayal!)

Freeze's gang board their getaway vehicle, which could be a refrigerated truck or something.  They take off down the highway.  The cops can only watch helplessly… when suddenly, a second vehicle roars by in hot pursuit of Mister Freeze.

Batman (Richard Armitage) follows Mister Freeze and a fun little car chase ensues.  The Batmobile will try to stop the truck, but can't.  Freeze could shoot the street, covering the road with ice, but any Batman worth his salt would be prepared for that and have custom tires on the Batmobile that never lose traction.  Anyway, for some reason, Batman has to abandon the Batmobile.  He switches the car onto autopilot and hits an eject button launching him into the air.

Using either his cape as a glider or a grappling gun, he manages to land on top of the truck or inside the back of the truck with Freeze and a goon or two.  Close-quarters fighting.  We see how strong Mister Freeze's special cryo-suit makes him, but Batman clearly has the edge.  In desperation, Freeze shoots one of his own henchman, covering the guy's head with ice, then dumps him out the back of the truck, knowing that Batman won't let the man die.

(See, in these movies, heroes do everything humanly--and superhumanly--possible to prevent death.)

Batman dives out the back of the truck, whilst planting a cute little bat-shaped tracking device on Mister Freeze's suit in one graceful motion.  Batman gets to the goon with the ice block on his head and manages to shatter or thaw the ice before the guy dies.  He leaves the goon tied up for the police when the Batmobile returns to him.

Mister Freeze arrives at his hideout, which could be a big meat locker or something.  The centerpiece of his lair is the cryo-unit sustaining his beloved wife, Nora.  The cryo-unit is connected to a bank of computers and other science-y stuff.

I haven't cast anyone as Nora Fries, because she's not a character but a prop.  Putting a real actress in the role of Popsicle-Woman would be a waste of talent, most likely.  The obvious-sounding solution is to cast a model who looks good deathly pale in a water tank and doesn't need to move or speak.  But when searching for that model, remember, Nora Fries was the wife of a scientist who looked like this on a good day:

In the presence of his wife's body, Mister Freeze turns back into Victor Fries, in his demeanor, at least.  Whereas during the heist and the getaway he was emotionless--merciless--he is now a doting husband, speaking in animated, almost excited tones to his wife's cryo-unit.  Victor proceeds to do things that are involved in testing the McGuffin on his wife.  Blood tests or whatever, I don't know.

While Victor's running his tests, Batman arrives and systematically takes down all of the henchmen.  Batman enters the chamber with Nora just as Victor concludes the test, discovering once again that the McGuffin is not a cure.  Victor is despondent.  Batman admits that he had heard of the McGuffin and knew it wasn't a viable cure.  In the past, Batman has pledged to help find a cure for Nora, believing it would end Mister Freeze's criminal activities.

Freeze lashes out verbally.  He was promised this cure would work!  Batman says Victor must return to Arkham Asylum (or Blackgate Prison, since I've never seen him as really insane), but Victor--now sounding much more like Mister Freeze--refuses to go easily.  Batman quips about them fighting and…

We cut to the fight's aftermath.  Mister Freeze's helmet is broken.  He's beaten, punch-drunk, mumbling about his wife, as Batman drops him on the hood of a police car outside the meat packing plant or wherever his hideout was.  Batman takes the McGuffin and gets in the Batmobile and leaves.

(This short scene could be where we establish how the rank and file cops in Gotham feel about Batman. Are they appreciative or resentful?  Do any of them try to speak to him or do they watch him walk on by without a word.  Regardless, no one tries to arrest him now.)

Batman brings the McGuffin back to S.T.A.R. Labs.  The facility is surrounded by cops, medical personnel, staff, and reporters trying to get the story.  Batman slips through the police barricade and enters the lab where the McGuffin was being created.  In the room is Commissioner James Gordon, Detectives Harvey Bullock and Renee Montoya, and the Labs' Director of Operations **.

Commissioner Gordon (Kevin Conroy)

This is a purely self-indulgent fanboy selection, but bear with me.  No one can replace Gary Oldman's Commissioner Gordon from The Dark Knight Trilogy.  Oldman is one a phenomenal actor who can play just about any role, but when I heard he was going to be Gordon in Batman Begins, I broke out into applause.  I've thought a lot of casting decisions were terrible only to be surprised by how well they turned out, but Gary Oldman as Gordon was perfect.

But I wasn't about to cast him again in the same role, so the alternative was to go in a radically different direction.  And I wanted to pay homage Kevin Conroy, who voiced Batman and Bruce Wayne in Batman: The Animated Series, which to this day remains my favorite presentation of the Batman in either comics, film, or television.  Conroy's non-voiceover resume isn't as hefty as so many better-known character actors who could play Gordon, but plenty of fans would let out a "squee" of excitement when they heard him speak for the first time.  He also wouldn't have to carry any scenes, though he might steal a few, because the Gordon in my Justice League movies isn't much greater than a cameo performance.

Detective Harvey Bullock (Michael Madsen) ***

and Detective Renee Montoya (Ana Ortiz)

Two mainstays of the comics and cartoons, Bullock and Montoya are there for the fans.  Like Gordon, they're little more than cameo appearances.  In fact, their roles would be smaller than Gordon's, as this is probably their only scene.  Michael Madsen is one of those actors who I can see showing up in any movie, and he definitely has the physical stature and menace that Bullock commands.  Ana Ortiz looks tough, but she has a warmth in her eyes that the "good cop" needs when talking to a suspect or witness.  Bullock is crass, brutish, and disdainful of the Batman.  Montoya is loyal, confident, and embarrassed by her partner.

Batman hands the McGuffin over to the Director.  Commissioner Gordon thanks Batman for acting so quickly and taking down Mister Freeze before anyone else could get hurt.  Detective Bullock is less supportive of Batman's involvement, and not shy about voicing his displeasure.  Detective Montoya essentially tells her partner to shut up.

The lab director puts the McGuffin back in its rightful place, but Batman isn't convinced the case is over.  Freeze was convinced the McGuffin could cure his wife, when even a tiny bit of research into the experiment would have told him that was a false promise.  So who put the bug in Freeze's ear?  Someone who wanted Mister Freeze to break into S.T.A.R. Labs.  A distraction for the police, one of the cops assumes?  Batman doesn't think so; too many other, easier distractions.  S.T.A.R. Labs was a serious target requiring lots of prep work.  So how come they tripped the alarms so quickly, Bullock wonders?  That was the distraction, Batman concludes.  Freeze was manipulated by someone else who wanted to get into the facility.  The director says nothing else is missing, though, but Batman disagrees.

"I'll have it analyzed… with SCIENCE!"

Here we see Batman actually being the Dark Knight Detective.  He starts deconstructing the heist--Sherlock-style--doing all kinds of C.S.I. stuff, and tracking the path of a second infiltrator, all while Gordon and the others watch in wonder.  Batman's investigation leads him to a different lab and a jagged piece of green, crystalline mineral under glass for observation.

Batman asks what the piece is and the director tells him it's called Kryptonite.  Batman tells him, no, this is just glass, and shatters the faux-Kryptonite shard on the floor.  He tells the others that someone snuck into the lab to steal the Kryptonite while Freeze was drawing all the attention to himself.  Montoya asks Batman if he thinks it was Catwoman, but he dismisses the idea.  His reason could be something as simple as not detecting her perfume.

So what's so special about Kryptonite?  Batman has never heard of it before and he asks the director to tell him about it.  The director says Kryptonite was discovered a couple decades ago, it emits a low level of radiation, and--pause of emphasis--it came from Outer Space.

To Be Continued…

* I have no idea why he doesn't go by Doctor Freeze.  I guess the AMA stripped him of his license when he was in jail.

** I didn't cast the Director of Ops for S.T.A.R. Labs because it could be a generic unnamed character for this one scene.  However, it could be an easter egg for fans by naming him after an established S.T.A.R. Labs scientist from the comics.  It could even be one of the numerous scientists who become super villains, like the Atomic Skull, the Alchemist, or the Kryptonite Man.

*** If for some reason I couldn't use Michael Madsen in this totally hypothetical scenario, I would pick William Forsythe as Bullock.

Fan-Casting DC's JUSTICE LEAGUE: Part 2

Click here to review Part 1.


NEW:  My original opening for the movie was a robbery in progress.  No slow buildup, no drawn-out origin of the heroes, no first twenty minutes on Planet Krypton--just smash right into the action, in medias res.  Part of my reasoning is that superhero movies, especially first movies--so-called origin stories--have become more and more homogenized, their structure more and more formulaic.  Man of Steel spent twenty minutes on Krypton, another hour with the titular character trying to figure out who he is, and I'd argue that by the time the credits roll, he still isn't Superman yet.  The whole movie felt like a prologue.

Another problem is that Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly completely spoiled me on superhero origins with All Star Superman.  They didn't need an hour, or whatever amount of pages that would translate to in a comic, to tell Superman's origin.  They do it in one page.

More specifically, they do it in four panels.

Everything you need to know about Superman in four images and eight words.  This is my favorite page in all of comics.

When, after completing the story of The World's Finest, I decided to come back and rightly introduce the two heroes in a prologue, I looked to the above page from All Star Superman for inspiration.


Prologue: Child of Light, Child of Darkness

We open the movie with a serious of dual, juxtaposing images played against a sweeping musical score.  The first thing we see is a medium shot of planet Earth against the darkness of space.  Space is a recurring image throughout the whole trilogy, so it's an appropriate first image.

From overhead, a small rocket ship blasts into view, rushing toward the nighttime surface.  We follow its descent over North America, the Great Plains, Kansas.  At last, we see the ship crash land in a corn field.

Cut to Wayne Manor, early morning.  In the master bedroom, Martha Wayne is laid up in bed, going into labor.  Doctor Thomas Wayne is delivering his son.  There's a midwife or nurse assisting.  Martha screams, pushing.  Thomas speaks encouraging words to his wife.  Of course, none of these words or screams are heard.  Just the music.  Martha screams again with one last, agonizing push that brings Bruce Wayne unto the world.

Thomas and Martha Wayne (Stephen Moyer and Kate Winslet)

Okay, while technically the first characters seen, these two were the last to be casted because I never planned on using them in the movies.  Of course, I couldn't run from their ghosts anymore than Batman could.  The Waynes are little more than cameos for this opening sequence (and another later on), but I wanted a pair of recognizable faces to play the ill-fated couple.  The parts demand actors who can play stately, even nobility, gravity, and a sense of otherworldliness.  Stephen Moyer and Kate Winslet possess all those traits, and I think they could suitably pass for the parents of the actor who will be playing grown up Bruce Wayne.

Cut to the cornfield.  Again, the music plays over these shots.  Jonathan and Martha Kent, both in the mid-to-late 20s at this time, jump out of their pickup truck.  Jonathan has a flashlight in hand.  They run into the fields where the ship came down.  They step into a small crater and find the alien craft, utterly awestruck at the site.  But that doesn't compare to their shock when the ship's "cockpit" opens.  Inside, cradled in a red blanket, is an infant child which looks human.

Cut to Wayne Manor bedroom.  Thomas Wayne holds his newborn son.  He brings him to Martha, who holds baby Bruce in her arms.  Thomas lies down in bed beside his wife and son.  The whole family together in love.

A long moment of black on the screen as time passes.

In Wayne Manor, five year old Bruce Wayne plays with his parents and the family butler, Alfred.  Everyone is laughing and smiling in slow motion with the score.  Bruce is playing with toy guns.  He and Alfred chase each other and mock-shoot each other.  Alfred pretends to get shot and fall down dead.  Bruce runs to the butler's side, laughing.  Alfred comes to life, tickling the boy, as Thomas and Martha look watch in delight.

Cut to the Kent Farm.  Five year old Clark Kent runs through the corn fields from a grain silo toward the house.  We follow him running for a beat, long enough to see he's gaining speed.  We close up on his feet, old, dirty tennis shoes.  Then something happens.  It's subtle at first, but we realize that Clark's feet aren't touching the ground anymore.  He's running a few inches over the soil, then a few inches more, then a foot.  Finally, he's running clear over the corn, practically flying…

A long moment of black on the screen as time passes.

Outside Jonathan Kent's barn, eight year old Clark lifts the tractor up with one hand to fetch a baseball that rolled under it.  He smiles back at his father.  Jonathan Kent drops his baseball glove and stares at the boy.  From the house, Martha stares out the kitchen window.

Cut to outside the Monarch Theater in Gotham City, night.  Eight year old Bruce Wayne comes out of the theater with Thomas and Martha.  Bruce runs, jumps, frolics as he pantomimes the action of the movie they just saw.  Thomas and Martha smirk and lead their son into the alley behind the theater.

Cut to inside the Kent's barn.  Jonathan pulls the tarp off of the rocket ship they found, the ship that brought Clark to Earth.  Martha stands behind the boy, her hands on his shoulders.  He steps forward, reaches, and touches the ship.  The score comes to an end with the first sound effects of the movie.  When Clark touches the ship, we hear to loud cracks--gunshots.

Cut to the alley in Gotham.  Bruce Wayne crouches beside the dead bodies of his mother and father beneath a single street lamp.

A long moment of black on the screen as time passes.  When we come back, the musical score has faded and we're in the real time of the movie.

On the Kent farm, Jonathan drives a tractor with a rototiller or some other heavy equipment through his fields.  And moving right by his side, adult Clark Kent (Jon Hamm) flies a few feet off the ground pulling an identical piece of equipment.  The effect is that they're tilling or ploughing the field while covering twice as much area.

Jonathan and Martha Kent (Robert Forster and Candice Bergen)

I can't remember ever seeing Robert Forster or Candice Bergen playing salt-of-the-earth, Midwestern farmers, but I also can't think of many actors of their age and calibre who I wouldn't want to hear impart folksy wisdom to buck up a superhero when he's feeling down.  The Kents most likely wouldn't appear until the second and third movies, but here they are.

Clark eats dinner with his parents.  Martha chides her son for not visiting more often.

Clark: "You think a lot of people fly halfway across the country for dinner every Wednesday?"
Martha: "You don't have to live in that big city."
Clark: "I work in that big city."
Martha (scoffing): "It's a five minute commute for you."

After dinner, he kisses his Ma and says goodnight.  He walks out onto the front porch where his Pa stands, watching the sunset.  Jonathan Kent asks Clark if he needs any money.  Clark shakes his head.

The two walk out onto the front yard.  As they walk, they talk about the state of the farm.  Clark wants his Pa to hire some help but Jonathan admits they can't afford it right now.  Clark says he can come home more often to help in the fields.  Pa Kent dismisses that idea.  "You got a whole world to take care of," he says.  "Don't you worry about your Ma and me."  They hug.

Ma Kent comes out onto the porch.  Clark waves to the two of them and then lifts off the ground, rockets into the sky, and flies away.

Cut To: Wayne Manor, present day, dusk.  Any light and joy that was in the house previously is gone.

Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne's butler, emerges from his quarters and shuts the door.  Alfred is dressed in the formal wear of his station.  He takes us on a visual tour of Wayne Manor that shows how grand and cavernous its rooms and corridors are.  The house feels like a museum.  Alfred enters the grand dining room and stops short.  The dining table is set for one: plated food, a drink, silverware.  All of it untouched.  Alfred doesn't try very hard to hide his disappointment.  He puts the uneaten food on a tray and carries it out of the room.

Alfred Pennyworth (Ian McElhinney)

As with Commissioner Gordon, casting Alfred was a case of finding an actor to replace a Hollywood icon who already played the role damn near perfectly.  I wanted someone lesser known to diminish expectations, someone who could play the quiet, almost pious dignity of Batman's butler, while also having the physical bearing of a former soldier.  Someone whose eyes have seen tragedy.  Someone who has taken up a noble but impossible cause.  Ian McElhinney, who plays the aged warrior Barristan Selmy on Game of Thrones, displays all those traits.

After depositing the tray in the kitchen, Alfred enters the Master Study.  This was Thomas Wayne's home office; this place is sacrosanct.  There is a large portrait of Thomas and Martha on the wall.

Alfred sees adult Bruce Wayne (Richard Armitage) at the window, staring out, watching the sunset.  Alfred doesn't say anything, just stands, watching Bruce watch the sun go down.  And when it does, when the sun dips below the horizon, like a vampire Bruce snaps out of a trance.  He turns away from the window and goes over to the grandfather clock.  He turns the hour hand until a hidden opening is revealed and the clock slides away.  Alfred follows Bruce down the steps into the Batcave.

Strut.

Bruce steps up to the Batman costume on display.  Rapid fire shots of Bruce "arming up".  The costume goes on.  The belt goes on.  The gloves go on.  Finally the cape and cowl.

Batman, fully outfitted, walks out of the frame and we smash right into our main story.

To Be Continued…

Fan-Casting DC's JUSTICE LEAGUE: Part 1

Welcome to utter lunacy!  If you haven't already, peruse the intro to this fan-made outline for a Justice League trilogy of films, as well as an explanation on my casting decisions.

Just as The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit each told one story broken into three theatrical installments, so to will JUSTICE LEAGUE.  The three individual movies that make up the whole are Part 1: The World's Finest, Part 2: The Brave and the Bold, and Part 3: Legends.  The title The World's Finest refers to the first published meeting of Superman and Batman in World's Finest Comics in 1940*.

96 pages for only fifteen cents?  Man,
the 1940s must have been such a happy,
peaceful time to live.

Since then, the phrase has also taken on a kind of nickname for the two most iconic heroes in the world.  In keeping with that idea, the first movie of the Justice League Trilogy will focus almost exclusively on Batman and Superman.

Likewise, the second movie's title, The Brave and the Bold, comes from the the comic book series of the same name, where the Justice League of America first debuted in issue #28, dated 1960.  The second movie will witness the gathering of heroes, as events in Part 1 convince Superman and Batman that the threat they face is bigger than even the two of them can handle alone.

In Part 2, the World's Finest will recruit Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern, and Aquaman, to thwart an insidious alien force that has infiltrated and possessed men and women in high-security positions in governments and militaries all over the world.

The alien plot to destabilize our world militarily will come to fruition in Part 3, when a conquering warlord from beyond the stars launches a full invasion of Earth.  Governments are toppled, cities are overrun, people are rounded up into prison camps for slave labor or execution.  All that stands in the way of our total enslavement are Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and the mysterious Martian Manhunter, who has seen the warlord's villainy before, and will stop at nothing to ensure that Earth does not meet the same fate as his home world.


The plot I've cobbled together for Justice League: The World's Finest draws inspiration from numerous sources in comics and graphic novels, including but not limited to: Trinity by Matt Wagner, Batman: Hush by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee, Batman: Rules of Engagement by Andy Diggle and Whilce Portacio, Superman: Kryptonite by Darwyn Cooke and Tim Sale, as well as select episodes of Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series, most notably those written by Paul Dini.



JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE WORLD'S FINEST.

My version of Batman doesn't have arms.  I don't think audiences will care.

The majority of the cast will be unveiled as their characters appear in the story.  The leads, however, demand a bit more room because I have more to say about the casting decisions and the way the characters would/should be represented in the films.

Batman/Bruce Wayne (Richard Armitage)

I loved a lot (not all, but most) of what Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale did with Batman in The Dark Knight Trilogy.  That said, my favorite portrayal of Bruce Wayne is still--by a wide margin--Michael Keaton in Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992).  What I continue to love about Keaton's Bruce Wayne is that a) he doesn't look like an action hero, so the average Gothamite wouldn't have any reason to suspect him of being Batman; and b) there are moments in those movies when I look in Michael Keaton's eyes and I see an eight year old boy standing over his parents' bodies.  There is a haunted-ness about Bruce Wayne that Keaton and director Tim Burton captured that no one else has.  That's what I was looking for for my Batman, and I found it in, of all places, Middle Earth.

Richard Armitage, who plays the prodigal dwarf-son, Thorin, in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and its pending sequels, can pull off that haunted quality--that terrified orphan still screaming in the night for vengeance.  He's also good-looking, with a bit of darkness that could veer heroic or villainous depending on the part.  And you wouldn't think of him kicking ass in spandex, which is good, as long as he can capture the other "essences" of Bruce Wayne.

Batman is our window into this epic adventure.  He's the most popular, most recognizable superhero in the world.  He's also relatively grounded in that he has no superpowers, no alien physiology or magic weaponry that sets him above the average man and woman.  Oh, he is definitely above average; even if Bruce Wayne never put on the cape and cowl he would still be one of the smartest men in the world, one of the richest men in the world, one of the greatest fighters in the world, one of the greatest detectives in the world.

And he is not conflicted about what he does.  Bruce Wayne has none of Spider-Man's pathos.  He's more like James Bond, a soldier on a mission for Queen and Country, or rather for Mom and Dad.  He's also not crazy.  He doesn't dress like a bat because he's delusional.  He does it because the costume and the myth about it, the fear it evokes, is tactically his best weapon in the war on crime.

There are a lot of great stories you can tell exploring the idea that Batman is as crazy as the villains he locks up in Arkham Asylum, but this is not one of those stories.  The way I see it, if Bruce Wayne is insane, then he cannot also be a hero.  And for this story, Batman needs to be a hero.

It's also important for me to establish right away that this Batman is not the same as Christopher Nolan's Batman, and the universe he lives in is not the same as the "Nolan-verse."  This Batman lives in a world of gods and monsters, of fantasy and science-fiction.

That's why the first villain we meet in the opening scene of the movie isn't a street-level psychopath like the Joker or a globe-trotting mercenary like Bane.  No, in the beginning of Justice League: The World's Finest, Batman is going to face off against a mad scientist with a freeze ray!

Superman/Clark Kent (Jon Hamm)

I've seen Jon Hamm's name pop up on a couple different fan-casts to play Batman, but the first time I saw him I thought he was picture perfect for Superman.  Watching him in Mad Men, you can see that he has the strong, confident bearing and classical looks of a bygone movie star like Cary Grant or Marlon Brando (Okay, the context of Mad Men helps with that).  A knock against Hamm I've heard is that he's too old, but I consider that more of a strength.  I don't want an insecure, college-age, rookie Superman.  I want a wiser, more mature hero who has been doing this, and doing it well, for years.

What further convinced me that he was perfect, though, was when I saw him guest appear on 30 Rock, as a character who couldn't act or look more different than his Mad Men persona.  Because playing Superman is also playing Clark Kent, and Hamm's Don Draper and Drew Baird showcase his range for earnestness, leadership, optimism, and something just slightly short of comic buffoonery.  And if you need evidence of how different a pair of reading glasses and a hair style can make one look, behold:

Spoilers for Man of Steel below.

In addition to being older and wiser than the Man of Steel in Man of Steel, the Superman of Justice League: The World's Finest values life and would never kill an enemy even in the bleakest of situation. The world in general and his life in specific would be better without Lex Luthor, but Superman would never kill him because he truly believes with every fiber of his super-being that Lex can be redeemed.

Superman would never break General Zod's neck when it seems like there's no other way, because he knows there is always another way.  Superman is an eternal optimist; it's the greatest gift from his birth parents.  Whereas Batman was "born" in an act of violence, Superman was born in an act of love.  The Waynes were senselessly, brutally gunned down in front of their son.  Jor-El and Lara sacrificed themselves to save theirs.  That sense of sacrifice and duty was then fostered by Superman's adopted parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent.

"That's why I'm setting my mind to print media,
because I can save anything."

The worst offense of Man of Steel, in my opinion, wasn't the execution of Zod or the millions of innocent citizens not saved by Superman in the movie's climax.  No, I completely understand why Superman didn't use his power to save anyone other than Lois Lane, because that version of Superman had no parental role model to pass those values down onto him.  Pa Kent in the movie encourages young Clark to let other kids die so that no one will discover his secret super powers.  Pa Kent acts ashamed of his son's gifts, and would literally rather die a horrible death than see his son "outed" to the public, a moment that resonated for all the wrong reasons with a lot of viewers.

The scene that I so desperately wanted to see in Man of Steel would form the foundation of Superman's character in Justice League, even if the scene never occurred in the three movies.  Rather than Jonathan Kent telling Clark that if he uses his god-given powers to make the world better then the Men in Black would take him away, I would play that scene in reverse.  It's Young Clark who is reluctant to expose himself out of fear of being taken away from his family.  Then Pa says,

"I'd like to see someone try and take you away.  You're my son, Clark.  I don't know where you come from originally, but you're mine, and no son of mine ever needs to be afraid of showing the world who and what he is."

Superman's family is the most important thing in the world to him.  His greatest fear is disappointing his mom and dad, that they'll regret adopting him and raising him as their son.

To Be Continued…

* The first issue of World's Finest Comics was actually called World's Best Comics, but DC changed the title after that issue.  So, technically, Batman and Superman met in World's Best Comics #1, but since they continued to adventure together for years in World's Finest, the latter has come to be considered canon.

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.