Fan-Casting DC's JUSTICE LEAGUE: Part 21

Previously…

So far:

Years ago, Colonel Steve Trevor of U.S. Air Force Intelligence crash landed on an uncharted island populated by Amazon warrior women.  The queen's daughter, Diana, came back to America with Trevor to help him bring peace to the world as Wonder Woman.

Washington, D.C.  The Goddess Outreach Center for Women and Children.  The architecture inside and out is heavily influenced by Ancient Greek culture, lots of columns, statues, etc.  There is a floral garden/playground in the center of the building.  Children--boys and girls--play while women watch.

Etta Candy is counseling a woman, a battered wife, while she watches her kids play.

Etta Candy (Rebel Wilson)

Etta Candy is the first real friend Diana makes after leaving Paradise Island.  She was everything Diana wasn't: raucous, undisciplined, not-conventionally attractive.  In her earliest appearances, her size and weight were played for laughs.  The current comics have made her as skinny as any costumed super heroine, but I don't think the publisher is trying to promote a healthier lifestyle; I think they're ashamed of fat.

In a modern cinematic take, I think Etta's size and its obvious contrast to Diana's beauty can be played as social commentary, but I'm not going to get into that because it doesn't matter now.  I went with Rebel Wilson in the part because Melissa McCarthy is too old and there aren't a lot of other overweight actresses getting jobs in Hollywood at the moment.

Etta's conversation with the woman is interrupted by a phone call.  Caller ID says it's The Pentagon.  She says, "Oh, crap…"

Intercut with Steve Trevor's office at The Pentagon.

Colonel Steve Trevor (Daniel Sunjata) is surrounded by frantic staffers and officers.  He is either in a private office or The Situation Room; either way, it's a veritable stirred hornet's nest.  Uniformed men and women running around, handing briefings to each other, checking maps, tablets for info.

Steve tells Etta he needs to talk to Diana and her phone says it's out of service.  Etta tells him she got a new cell phone or something to that effect.  Steve really needs to talk to her now, but Etta claims she was instructed not to give Steve the new cell number.  Steve says lives are in danger.

We cut to Diana (Bridget Regan) driving down the highway in a nice town car.  She wears a fashionable raincoat, black, grey or white.  There's another woman riding in the passenger seat.  She has a bruise on her face.  Not to be insensitive, but for the purpose of this write-up, she'll just be referred to as the Wife.

The wife tells Diana they don't have to do this.  Diana says yes they do.  Her phone rings, she checks the ID, and answers, grumbling.

Steve: "Before I ask why you're screening my calls, I need you for a mission."
Diana: "I'm busy."
Steve: "Three American hostages in Santa Prisca.  Contractors with Agency ties.  Intel says they could be executed anytime--"
Diana: "Before you reveal anymore classified information, Steve, you should know that there's is a civilian in the car with me."

Trevor grits his teeth and nearly bangs the phone on his head.  Diana introduces him to the woman by name and describes how she came to the Goddess Outreach Center in an extraordinary act of courage.  Diana describes how the woman's husband is abusive and hits her in front of her children.  Steve is sorry but he needs Diana now.

Steve: "This is a hostage situation."
Diana: "So is this."
Steve: "I'm serious, Diana.  This is a job for Wonder Woman."
Diana: "So is this."

Diana pulls the car to a stop near the Mount Vernon trail along the Potomac.  There's a company picnic nearby full of K-Street lobbyists.  Diana encourages the wife to get out of the car with her.  As they step out and gaze at the picnic, a rough wind picks up, along with the whup-whup-whup of propellers.  Diana and the wife look up as an unmarked, military helicopter lands on the grass near them.

Steve Trevor gets out of the chopper and approaches Diana.  Everyone at the company picnic has taken notice.  The wife shrinks back by the car.  Steve runs up to Diana and tells her he needs her immediately.  He puts a hand on her arm as if to grab her.  Something flashes in her eyes, something fierce and dangerous.  Steve releases her instantly, says, "Please."

Diana: "Are your agents' lives worth more than hers?"
Steve: "Their lives are in immediate danger. Hers isn't."
Diana: "You and I disagree on the qualities of life."
Steve: "Being mortal does that."

The wife tells Diana she should go with Steve and save people.  Diana walks over to her, holds her hands, says she knows what her husband has done, what he's said to her, what men have said to her all her life, but what does she have to say?  When will you speak for yourself, she asks?  The wife nods her ascent.

Can't you hear that boom, badoom, boom,
boom, badoom, boom bass? You got that
super bass!

A crowd of onlookers from the picnic have gathered because of the noise of the military chopper.  Diana walks by Steve, tells him if he wants to be useful he can hold her jacket.  Then in dramatic fashion, she whips off her raincoat, revealing the full garb of Wonder Woman.  Everyone responds.

Wonder Woman walks up to the lobbyist crowd at their picnic tables and singles out the Husband who looks startled and a bit scared.  (Maybe for fun she snacks on some kind of dip that's really good during this scene--could be a way to lighten the mood or disarm the rest of the people while she questions the husband.)  She explains in front of everyone that the husband's wife didn't come to the picnic like the other spouses because the husband wouldn't let her.  He was afraid they'd all notice the fresh bruises that he administered last night.  But the wife is here now seeking justice.  The husband denies doing anything, maybe even tries to push her away.

Wonder Woman is physically stronger.  She says his wife will no longer submit to his abuse.  Instead, the husband will submit to Wonder Woman.  She pulls out her lasso, which glows slightly.  "Now," she says, "How will you confess your crimes--of your own will… or mine!"

Cut to a few minutes later.  The husband is talking to the police, crying, confessing, with a blanket over his shoulders.  Diana tells the wife she needs to press charges, none of this matters unless the woman is willing to liberate herself of the slavery imposed on her by this man.  The wife, Diana says, must break the chains of abuse herself, then go back and take care of her kids.

Wonder Woman walks over to Steve, saying she's ready now.  Steve says she's too late.  "They were executed?" Diana asks.  "No," Steve says, "someone else saved them."

Cut to a quick succession of shots of soldiers on Santa Prisca--an island nation in Central America--firing weapons in the air.  Superman flies fast over the beach, dodging bullets and artillery.  He slams through the wall of an old colonial fort.  Prisoners in a cell look up as Superman opens the wall and offers his hand.

Back at Washington, D.C./Mount Vernon, Steve gets back on the chopper, looking back at Wonder Woman.

Cut To: Goddess Outreach Center.

Diana brings the wife back to the women's center; Steve Trevor is with them.  She's greeted by Etta and the children.  The kids encourage Diana to play with them and she indulges.

From the hallway or foyer, Steve watches Diana play in the garden with the kids.  Etta Candy comes up beside him.

Etta: "It can't be easy being in love with her, can it?"
Steve: "I'm not her boyfriend.  She's a foreign ambassador and I'm her advisor to the United States."
Etta: "Yeah, I said it can't be easy being in love with her, can it?"

Steve watches for another moment… and we flash back to his first encounter with Diana.

Steve is lost on Themyscira after just surviving a plane crash.  He makes his way through the jungle and comes upon a glade by a waterfall.

Diana is naked, washing herself in the cool water.  Steve stares for a while.  Eventually, she notices him and reacts, but doesn't cover herself up.  Having never seen a man before, she has no concept of modesty or shame about her body.  Also, physically speaking, she has no reason to.

Suddenly, Steve is surrounded by Amazons with swords and spears at his neck and genitals.  Diana approaches him, scrutinizing everything about him.  She stands before him, and reaches out to touch him.

Cut back to the outreach center.  Steve shakes his head.

Diana steps away from the kids and meets Steve in the hall.  She is no longer dressed as Wonder Woman, but wears a simpler gown.  Their conversation is heated, emotional.

Diana: "You confirmed that the hostages are safe?"
Steve: "Yeah. Diana, the government gives you a lot of leeway to operate within its borders with the understanding that in a crisis you follow orders and do what I say."
Diana: "There's always a crisis, Steve.  Every day, around the world, and while you're trying to fix those problems, good people fall between the cracks.  What would you have had me say to that woman--wait another hour when her emancipation is more convenient?  A day?  A week?  And in the meantime, how many more bruises and broken bones must she suffer?  What about her children?"
Steve: "I'm not indifferent to that, Diana, but I had men in danger."
Diana: "I don't prioritize your soldiers over any woman in need."
Steve: "I thought you understood when I brought you here.  You came here on a mission of peace, right?  You think World Peace starts with stopping some K Street lobbyist from beating his wife?"
Diana: "Has your way made the world more peaceful, Steve?"
Steve: "I'm a colonel in the United States Air Force, Diana.  I don't set my own priorities.  I follow orders."
Diana: "And I follow my heart."

Steve leaves, a little heartbroken.  Being around Wonder Woman tends to give you an epic case of blue balls in the heart, soul, and, um, the other.  And Diana knows this.  She knows how Steve feels but she does not reciprocate in this case.  

Diana suppresses a tear, then goes back into the garden to play with the kids.

To Be Continued…

(This entire sequence came with a slight bit of hesitation.  I wanted to establish Wonder Woman's daily life and status quo without the benefit of a movie or contemporary origin story to reference.  So I had to imagine a Wonder Woman origin film to use only as background material.  Thankfully, my best friend Frank put forth some ideas on his Wonder Woman fan-blog that closely reflect my tastes.

The most difficult thing to decide was who is Diana when she's not being Wonder Woman.  Throughout her history in the comics, she hasn't always had an alter-ego, and when she has, it was often embarrassingly sexist.  I wanted to keep her ties to the U.S. military, but I didn't want her being an office clerk, nor a full-time super soldier.  I liked how Diana served as an ambassador and advocate during Greg Rucka's run.  I wanted to embrace her feminist origins in as modern a way as I felt comfortable with.  This led to my idea that Diana would function as Wonder Woman when the military needed a superhero, but the rest of the time she would run a healthcare or treatment center for battered women and children, and exact her own brand of justice on men who hurt or mistreated women.

Sounded simple enough until I had to choose which was more important to her.  In this first scene, the scene that is supposed to tell us who Wonder Woman is and what's important to her, I chose to have her  ignore American hostages in favor of taking down a wife-beater.  In the grand scale of things, it didn't seem very heroic, and I still fear that it would turn the audience against her right away.  But it was important to show two things about Diana: she is not from here, and she is not a soldier.  Diana comes from a culture pretty alien to modern Western civilization; our values are not her own.  She has different beliefs and different priorities, chief among them is the empowerment of women and the punishment of men who abuse them.  She is also fiercely independent and doesn't acquiesce to the whims of Steve Trevor and his government.  She serves the United States of America at her pleasure, no one else's.  Hopefully, the audience could grasp this internal struggle in Diana, especially as it influences her decisions throughout the rest of the movie.)

Fan-Casting DC's JUSTICE LEAGUE: Part 20

Click here to review Part 19.

So far:

A joint project by Wayne Enterprises and LexCorp to create robotic construction drones was weaponized and released on Metropolis by the Martian shape changer, Bel Juz.  Though Superman and Batman kept the casualties to a minimum, the public blames both companies, including Batman's alter-ego Bruce Wayne for the disaster.  Also, Lucius Fox was infected by the alien Starro, but Superman managed to remove the starfish-looking creature from Fox.

Act 1

After the prologue which introduces us to some of our new heroes, we return to familiar faces from the first movie.  The media is blasting Wayne Enterprises and LexCorp for their culpability in the death and destruction at Metropolis.  Different news outlets cover the fallout of this event and its worldwide effects--plummeting stocks, federal investigations, protests outside corporate offices.

Batman/Bruce Wayne (Richard Armitage)

(I've already covered my reason for casting Richard Armitage as Batman waaay back in the first part of this epic.)

Bruce Wayne rides in the back of his limousine watching the news unfold, flipping through channels, most of which are blasting him.  He hovers for a second on the roundtable discussion show, You're All Wrong, hosted by Jack Ryder.

The Creeper/Jack Ryder (Colin Morgan)

I chose Merlin star Colin Morgan because I think he has the wild gangliness of the Creeper, even though he won't ever play that role in this movie.  For The Brave and the Bold, Morgan really just needs to play a douche bag TV show host.

Bruce changes the channel to local Gotham City news.  Vicki Vale is one of many reporters doing a standup outside the luxury apartment of Wayne Enterprises CEO Lucius Fox.  We segue from the back of Bruce's limo to the street where Vicki reports that Lucius Fox has been released from the hospital after sustaining a "mysterious injury in Metropolis just prior to the rogue drone attack".

Vicki Vale (Sarah Chalke)

For the purpose of this movie, I went with the on-camera reporter Vicki Vale from the video game, Batman: Arkham City.  For this tiny cameo, the role doesn't require much more than a pleasing face, but if expanded to further appearances, Sarah Chalke is an actress I've always liked.

Vale observes Bruce Wayne's limousine arrive.  Police usher the car past reporters and down into an underground garage so Bruce doesn't have to face them or take questions.

Cut to: Upstairs, in the penthouse apartment of Lucius Fox.

Lucius recovers in his own bed.  His wife, along with Bruce's butler, Alfred Pennyworth take a tray of food and medication out of the room, leaving Lucius alone with Bruce.

Alfred Pennyworth (Ian McElhinney)

Lucius Fox (Ernie Hudson)

(I've similarly already discussed the casting of McElhinney and Hudson here and here.)

Lucius says his wife won't let him watch TV or read the news.  He asks Bruce how bad their stock got hit.  Bruce tries to deflect, but Lucius knows it's bad.  Bruce asks him about the effect of being possessed by the alien.

Lucius: "It felt like my body was hijacked, like I was shoved in the backseat while it drove.  It wasn't just my body, though, it got in my mind… every thought, every memory… It knows you're Batman."
Bruce: "I know."
Lucius: "The cave, the company, your whole life is compromised."
Bruce: "That's why I need to find Mercy Graves, or whatever she really is.  When she was in your mind, were you able to…look back?"
Lucius: "I saw…"

Rapid fire shots of Mars, different aliens, and a giant humanoid in shadow.

"There's something… bigger than her," Lucius says, "something worse."

Images of countless little starros flying through space, they begin to descend on a world that is dominated by one giant Starro wrapping its tentacles around the planet.

"All those creatures," Lucius continues, gazing out at nothing, "they're one… one massive and horrible mind… Starro!"

Cut to Bruce standing on the veranda outside the penthouse, playing with a smartphone/tablet.  It's day but fairly overcast--never sunny in Gotham City.

There's a sudden gust of wind behind Bruce.  Without looking up from his phone, he asks, "How do you like Gotham?"  Clark Kent, standing behind him on what had just been an otherwise empty veranda, tells him it's nice.  Bruce almost rolls his eyes.  "I'll bet my salary against yours that you're the first person in a hundred years to describe it that way," he says.

Superman/Clark Kent (Jon Hamm)

(Once again, go back to the first post in this series for my reasons why Jon Hamm should play Superman.)

Bruce shows Clark something on his phone.  It's a very high-tech mapping software that shows a line from the sea to an island/coast in Southeast Asia.  Udon Khai, he identifies the place, and goes on to describe how one of the escape pods was picked up by a ship, and after Superman retrieved the pod, the ship made an unscheduled detour to Udon Khai, where the crew abandoned the ship and disappeared into the city.  The crew was brainwashed by this "starro" thing.  Bruce also explains how Udon Khai's government is a joke, completely bought out by cartels that traffic in women and child slavery.

"I'm going to Udon Khai to pick up the trail," Bruce says.

Clark points out the sizable drop in his company's stock.  "Without Lucius, who else can run Wayne Enterprises? Clark asks.  "You need to be here right now.  People depend on you."  They argue.

Bruce: "Who am I speaking to at the moment?"
Clark: "What?"
Bruce: "Am I talking to the Man from Krypton or am I talking to the reporter who's under deadline to file a story about me?"
Clark: "A reporter whose newspaper you bought four days ago--hang on…"

Clark looks off at the city.  Close up shot on his ear, and we hear, faintly, the ringing of an old-fashioned alarm.  "Jewelry store robbery," Clark says.  Bruce tells him to go ahead.

Clark jumps off the veranda.  Bruce just stands there, unaffected.

In a different part of Gotham, a man runs out of a jewelry store with a bag of loot.  As he's running, he is clotheslined by Superman.  The Man of Steel walks into the jewelry store where two more robbers are shocked to see him.  Superman quips, "Unless you're planning to marry every single lady in Gotham, I'd put the diamonds back, fellas."

Clark Kent pops back onto the veranda, back in his mild mannered reporter look.  He's cinching his necktie.  "Mercy got what she wanted," he tells Bruce.  "Your company is discredited.  If you want to beat her, you need to fix your good name."

"I'm going to beat her by beating her," Bruce says.  "At first she wanted me under control, but when she couldn't do that, she decided to ruin my reputation.  Because she knows I can stop her.  So she wants my attention elsewhere.  That's not going to happen."

Clark is going to respond, but he hears something else in the distance.  He bolts. 

On a street corner, two rival gangs are shooting each other with semiautomatic guns.  Superman lands in between them.  A teenage banger comes out of hiding and unloads on Superman.  Superman melts the bullets with heat vision so they boil and liquify even as they're coming out of the barrel.  Then the gun overheats and the kid drops it.

Back on the veranda, Clark says, "Listen… no, hang on."  Then he's off again.

In a city park, Superman has already taken out several goons dressed like Alice in Wonderland characters.  The Mad Hatter curses at him.  Superman claps his hands and the shockwave knocks Mad Hatter down, blowing his hat off.  Superman picks it up, pulls out the mind control band, and crushes it while Hatter whimpers on the ground like a child.

Mad Hatter/Jervis Tetch (Michael Sheen)

Michael Sheen made the short list for a lot of villains in my DC fan-casting.  Perhaps unfortunately for him, most of them were unattractive oddballs, like Scarecrow, Toyman, Mr. Mxyzptlyk, even the Joker.  Eventually, I settled on him playing the Mad Hatter in this briefest of cameos.

Back on the roof, Clark looks somewhat disheveled--shirt unbuttoned, tie loose.

Bruce: "Still think it's a nice city?"
Clark: "I'm not used to teenagers shooting at me with machine guns."
Bruce: "They're not afraid of you."
Clark: "I hear screams every minute, gun shots on the hour.  How do you fight crime here when it feels like everyone wants to kill everyone else?"

Bruce stares at Clark, wondering if the irony of his question has dawned on him.  "I prioritize," he says very measuredly.  "I can't move faster than a speeding bullet, so I have to pick my battles very carefully."

Translation: Wayne Enterprises will endure. I'm going to Asia.

To Be Continued…

Fan-Casting DC's JUSTICE LEAGUE: Part 19

Back in August, I began what should have been a simple post with pictures of DC superheroes next to the actors I would like to see play them in a movie.  It turned into twenty-or-so posts and a treatment for  the first part in a trilogy chronicling the origin of the Justice League.

Given how much more time went into outlining Justice League: The World's Finest than I expected, and how surprising some of the plot points felt even to me as I wrote them, I wanted to take the time out to really make sure I knew what would happen in the sequel before I continued.  After all, the second chapter is where things get really complicated.  This is where our lead heroes, Batman and Superman, first encounter the rest of the legends who will form the team.

This story draws heavy inspiration from different comics and cartoons published by DC, particularly The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke.

JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD.

You think this looks crowded, try cramming these guys into one two-hour movie!

After Batman and Superman united to stop the Martian woman Bel Juz from destroying Metropolis with rogue battle drones, there are still a number of continuing threads and lingering threats from the first movie.

• Hundreds of people were injured or killed in Metropolis.
• LexCorp and Wayne Enterprises are crucified in the media for their involvement in the drone attacks.
• Bel Juz escaped capture.
• Bel Juz knows Batman's alter-ego is Bruce Wayne.
• The heroic Martian J'Onn J'Onzz lies in a coma in the Batcave after nearly dying in a fire to save Lois Lane and stop Commander Blanx.
• Hundreds or more tiny starfish creatures known as starros have spread across the globe, attaching to and possessing human hosts.
• A dozen or so people infected by starros have been taken to the hospital for recovery.

That brings us as up to speed as we need to be.  Like the previous round of fan-casting/outlining posts, I will update my casting decisions as the characters are introduced.

Prologue: Secret Origins

The World's Finest introduced us to Batman and Superman.  The Brave and the Bold will introduce us to The Flash, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman (and later Aquaman) in a series of prologue sequences.  These are quick, meant to suggest the origin of these three heroes, not replace an origin story or movie.  Ideally, the first adventures of these heroes would be fleshed out in their own movies.  I'm writing this as if Flash, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman have been operating for at least a year.

As with the first movie, this one opens with a shot of the Earth from space.  Soon, the burning wreckage of a space station comes into the shot from above.  This is the space station that crashed in the first movie.  We see the escape pods jettisoned, but this time we follow one of them all the way down as it burns through the atmosphere and lands in the Atlantic Ocean.

Inside the escape pod, a metallic cylindrical cache opens up, revealing a starro much larger than the others we've seen before.  Almost instantly, it begins to grow even more.  This is the lead starro, the controller, and will be known throughout this story as Starro (capital s) or Starro Prime.  It's massive eye/mouth/thing opens and a torch-like laser begins burning through the hull of the pod.  Starro slips out of the hole in the bottom of the pod and swims out into the water.  He continues to grow larger, and larger.  And more, tiny starros separate from his body, fanning out in different directions.

As this is happening, we hear the voice of Bel Juz (Sanaa Lathan) in talking over the scene.  She speaks to her unseen/unheard "Master", describing the events from the last movie.  She refers to Starro, calling it their servant, and says she can feel his agents on the planet.  Soon they will feel everyone…

As she mentions this, and as the starros have spread out from Starro Prime, we cut to multiple quick shots of different people around the world getting taken over by starros.

We also see Bel Juz in an undisclosed location.  She appears to be meditating, though she is speaking telepathically to her Master.  She concedes that Earth's champions are surprisingly resourceful, and at this we get shots of Batman and Superman.  As powerful as they are, however, they are simply too few to halt the coming invasion…

Cut to: Central City.

We see the city skyline during a fierce electrical storm.  The sky could be vaguely reddish.  Lightning crashes down.  We get an establishing shot of Central City Metro Police Station.  Inside, we see a door labeled CRIME LAB.

Barry Allen enters the storage room of the crime lab, carrying a box full of beakers, jars, and assorted equipment.  The far wall of the storage room is shelves upon shelves of chemicals and solutions and whatnot.  There's a large window nearby.  Barry looks like a nerdy lab tech; he's wearing a bow tie.

The Flash/Barry Allen (Neil Patrick Harris)

Neil Patrick Harris was the first actor I thought of for the Flash, possibly because he has voiced the character in animated movies before.  He's grown up since that awful/wonderful "Doogie Howser" phase, but he still retains a lot of those sensibilities in other roles he plays.  He's smart and often either coldly analytical or hyperactive.  His productivity on Broadway testifies to his physical athleticism as much as any action movie star, and his collaborations with Joss Whedon attest to his geek credentials and ability to transcend into the superhero genre.

Barry is putting beakers and chemicals back on the shelf, arranging them slowly, carefully.  Outside we see a huge lighting bolt rip downward from the clouds.  Inside the storage room, the lighting bursts through the window, smashes like like a rampaging animal into the shelf of chemicals, and zig backwards into Barry!

As Barry stands there, electrocuted, the jars and containers of liquids on the shelf shatter, spraying chemicals down on him.  As this happens, the current of lightning flows through him, over him, around him.

Time stops.  Chemicals spray.  Electricity dances over the droplets of liquid and onto Barry.  We get a crazy, rotating Matrix-style 360 degree shot around Barry as the electrical current goes around and through him, with a flickering effect showing his insides, his skeleton, like a negative image.

Time starts again, and Barry goes down.  The shelves/cabinet starts on fire.  So does Barry.

Other lab technicians and police rush into the storage room.  They smother the fire on the cabinet/shelf and on Barry.  This could be in slow motion, very muted sound effects; people call Barry's name, sounding far away.  The voices are deafened by the sound of a heartbeat.  It beats faster, faster, impossibly fast, faster until--

Cut To: The California Desert

--we see feet running.  We slowly pan up and away, revealing more of the runner and the background.  It's night in the desert.  The runner wears olive colored coveralls, a mechanic or pilot's jumpsuit.  As he runs, we see fiery debris in the background, the wreckage of some kind of explosion… or crash!

The runner gets to the top of sand dune, and as he crests the hill, from over his shoulder we see the still flaming remains of a downed spaceship.  The runner, Hal Jordan, stands for just a moment to take in the scene before rushing toward the ship.

Green Lantern/Hal Jordan (James Marsden)

When fan-casting this movie trilogy and the wider DC Universe, I tried to think of people who weren't associated with superhero or fantasy genre films already.  Obviously, that wasn't the case with James Marsden, who has appeared in two other comic-based film properties.  He was criminally underused in both.

In the X-Men movies, he played Cyclops, whose character amounted to nothing other than being not Wolverine, and in Superman Returns, he played the love interest of Lois Lane who didn't have incredible powers.  In both movies, he played the safe, responsible choice of boyfriend/husband, while the women pined for the antisocial, super-powered outsider.  Yeah, his track record in this genre is for playing the boring "also ran" male foil, even though his actions in Superman Returns were a lot more noble and heroic than the title character's.  The problem is Marsden can play the other type of hero so well.  He can play the arrogant, cocksure, lead-with-your-face role, and his comic abilities feel a lot more natural than Ryan Reynolds'.

Hal fearlessly runs through the wreckage, past balls of flame toward the ship, shouting for anyone who can hear him.  He stops when he reaches the hull.  There's a green light emanating from somewhere inside.  Hal seems almost entranced by it.  He enters the ship through a hole in the fuselage and makes his way toward the light, which happens to be in the direction of the cockpit.

The cockpit is a mess--partially caved in ceiling, controls in pieces, support beams protruding every which way…  The green light flickers from a strange object on the ground; it looks almost like a lantern.  Hal reaches down to pick it up… and an alien hand grasps him around the wrist.

Abin Sur (Michael Berryman)

Do I really have to explain this decision?

The alien Green Lantern known as Abin Sur (Michael Berryman) looks at Hal with dying eyes and holds out his fist.  Green light emits from his ring and appears to scan Hal.  Wheezing, coughing up blood, Abin Sur says, "Hal Jordan of Earth… You have been chosen…"

The ring glides off of Abin's hand, floats through the air and slides onto Hal Jordan's middle finger.  Green energy builds from the ring and the lantern on the floor.  It glows, growing brighter and brighter until it whites out the screen and--

Cut To: Themyscira

--the while dissolves into foggy clouds.  We move forward, piercing the clouds to reveal an island in the Mediterranean Sea.

Hippolyta (Lucy Lawless)

This didn't take a lot of thought, although I did consider Peta Wilson for a couple seconds.  Ultimately, there was never anyone to play the Queen of the Amazons other than Xena herself, Lucy Lawless.

Over the next series of shots, we hear the voice of Queen Hippolyta narrating:

"For the first time in thousands of years, a man has landed on the shores of our island."  Establishing shot of the island's capital.  The buildings all evoke classical Greco-Roman architecture, with statues of ancient goddesses and female warriors all around the common.

"Colonel Steve Trevor, from the nation of America, is on a mission to prevent a war that would cost countless innocent lives."  We see Steve Trevor brought to the palace, a grand temple to Hera (or Athena) by Amazon soldiers in ancient Greek-style battle armor.

Steve Trevor (Daniel Sunjata)

Colonel Steve Trevor of U.S. Air Force Intelligence is the first man Wonder Woman ever sees.  That's a big deal.  He becomes her handler, her tutor, her first love.  He's a military man, a spy, who gets stranded on an island of beautiful warrior women, most of whom have never seen a man before.  For Steve Trevor, you need an actor who can play alpha male, badass action hero.  But you also need an actor who won't steal the show or eclipse your female star, because his role is always subservient to Wonder Woman's.

I've been a fan of Daniel Sunjata since the first episode of Rescue Me.  If Denis Leary left the show, I would have watched it for Sunjata's character, Franco.  I like his ethnicity, and he nails all the right chords for a Steve Trevor character, but he's also not an A-list Hollywood star.  You don't think of him as a leading man, but he could and should play backup to the Amazon Princess.  As a bonus, he's already played a military man in a DC movie for, like, three minutes.

Hippolyta's narration continues: "He must be returned to his homeland… one of us must journey to Man's World."  As this line is spoken, we see the end of the Contest wherein the queen's daughter, Diana, wins the honor of taking Trevor away from Paradise Island.

Wonder Woman/Diana (Bridget Regan)

Wonder Woman is objectively difficult for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is she is supposed to be the most beautiful woman in the world.  In my fantasy world, Wonder Woman is so beautiful that it almost hurts to look at her.  Only one actress I know has that kind of beauty and that's Monica Bellucci.    She was my first choice years ago.  But that was years ago.  More than a couple years ago.

As beautiful as Monica Bellucci still is, alas, I think she is at least ten years too told for the part of Wonder Woman.  But a couple years ago, the wife introduced me to this show Legend of the Seeker.  The quality of the show varied: sometimes really good, sometimes, er, not, but the cast was great and fun to watch.  The women, in particular, were good.

Bridget Regan played the female lead, and without going into detail, her character was beautiful, powerful, resourceful, compassionate, loving, tragic, unmatched in combat, and a bit mythical in nature.    As I watched her on the show, I realized I was watching a prototype for Wonder Woman.

We see Hippolyta equipping Diana with the weapons and armor bequeathed by the gods and goddesses--shots of the lasso, the lariat, and Diana's armor/breastplate.  Hippolyta and Diana bid farewell to each other.  Hippolyta sends her off with love… and a foreboding prediction: Diana must help Steve bring peace to the world of men.  This mission will consumer her.  Diana might never be able to return to Themyscira.

Diana in full Wonder Woman costume walks away with Steve Trevor.  Hippolyta watches them from her palace, fighting back a tear of pride/love/fear/doubt as she says goodbye to her daughter.

At this we get a hard cut, or a black out, maybe the main title card, but it should be clear at this point that we've transitioned out of these introductory vignettes and are now in our full story.

To Be Continued…

Fan-Casting DC's FIRESTORM: Part 5

Click here to review part 4.

So far: 

In the second Firestorm movie, titled The Fury of Firestorm, Professor Martin Stein helps his former colleague, Crystal Frost, develop a thermafrost research chamber.  But when the experiment goes wrong, Crystal is transformed into Killer Frost.  Firestorm is unable to stop her during their first confrontation.  After the battle, Professor Stein is killed.

Immediately following the death of Professor Stein (David Strathairn), we get one of those now-classic sequences where the music kicks up and all the in-scene sound is muted.  The tempo slows down as Ronnie (Reid Ewing) wakes up and rushes to his mentor's side.  He cradles the body, crying, screaming in rage, all in slow motion while the score reaches crescendo.

After Stein is dead and buried, the rest of the second act sees Ronnie (or Jason) having to deal with the death of his friend.  There is a lot of unresolved emotional baggage, because they were fighting before Stein died, and Ronnie feels like he never committed as much to being a good, responsible hero like he should have.

At this point we'll also see an agony and vengeful Ronnie attempting to harness the Firestorm matrix without merging with Stein.  The result is something similar to the Elemental Firestorm-era of the comics.  He tries to attack Killer Frost (Mena Suvari) in this form, but cannot control the powers and endangering even more lives than her.

Ronnie knows that Firestorm is the only being powerful enough to stop Killer Frost, but he cannot control Firestorm alone.  He needs to fuse with another person to fully capture the Firestorm matrix.  He needs help.  He needs a new partner.

Firestorm 2.0

This next part is contingent on who our main character has been for the first movie-and-a-half.  If the protagonist is Ronnie Raymond, then he partners with Professor Stein's last protege, a young scientific genius named Jason Rusch.

Firestorm/Jason Rusch (Luke Youngblood)

Wait, wait, waitaminute! you say.  Didn't you already cast Donald Glover as Jason Rusch?

Indeed, I did, but that was for a different role; that was for a Jason that would carry the franchise on his shoulders.  I think Donald Glover is capable of--and overdue for--driving a superhero adventure series on his own.  So if Jason Rusch was our hero from the onset of Firestorm: The Nuclear Man, I would definitely cast Glover.

If he wasn't, though, if Jason Rusch doesn't appear until the second movie, and then as a replacement for Stein, functioning more as a supporting character than lead, well, then Glover's talent and star power would best be served with a different character (and yes, I'll name that character at another time).  In that case, I'm going with my second choice, Luke Youngblood.

Youngblood is chameleonic in his ability to capture different characters on screen--and no character is more different than Magnitude on Community.  He's also a Brit, and I think letting him keep the accent would be cool way to further differentiate him from the All-American athlete Ronnie.


On the other hand, if our main character always was Jason (played by Donald Glover, remember) but written more like Ronnie, then his new partner in the Firestorm matrix would be his girlfriend.

Gehenna (Liu Yifei)

Okay, cards on the table, I don't know who this young woman is.  There are lots of other, perhaps more recognizable Chinese actresses, but most of them I'd already cast in other roles.  But Liu Yifei's imdb credits testify to her talent, and a google images search testifies to her sweet, wholesome beauty.

Now we have two options for Firestorm, each dynamic and interesting in its own way.  By the third act, a new Firestorm is born.

In the third act, Firestorm confronts Killer Frost again.  This time, with Jason (or Gehenna) providing some clutch insight into thermodynamics, Firestorm realizes that using fire and heat against Killer Frost only empowers her.  That cold is actually her enemy.  Firestorm uses his powers to lower the temperature somehow/somewhere and Killer Frost is shut down.

Ronnie, of course, wants to kill her to avenge Professor Stein, but Jason talks him out of it.  Killer Frost is immobilized and taken into government custody.  Ronnie and Jason (or Jason and Gehenna) mourn Stein's passing, but move on as a newer, stronger version of the hero, Firestorm.

That's the second movie, in a nutshell.  The dignified, iconic Martin Stein dies to be replaced by a younger, more ethnic character, because that's what comics do.  Ronnie goes through an emotional crisis and emerges stronger, more mature, more grounded, and a better all-around hero.

But there are still Firestorm stories to be told…

Beyond the Sequel

I won't get into additional movie synopses, but here are the casting choices for some more villains and supporting players.

Black Bison/John Ravenhair (Adam Beach)

Probably the biggest actor of Native American descent in Hollywood at this time is Adam Beach.  I've seen him play a soldier a couple times, and he's always kind of a good, noble guy.  I would like to see him stretch that range, playing a good, noble guy that succumbs to his darkest urges for vengeance as Black Bison.  And Wes Studi could play his great-grandfather, Bison-Black-As-Midnight-Sky.

Plastique/Bette Sans Souci (Clemence Poesy)

Clemence Poesy was the French girl from the fourth Harry Potter movie that competed for the Goblet of Fire.  She's the one who wasn't Robert Pattinson.  Beyond that, she's beautiful and she's French.  What more could you ask for in the sexy, explosive terrorist known as Plastique?

Hyena/Summer Day (Hilary Duff)

A bit of stunt casting, and a bit of my own weird sense of humor--casting an attractive, highly visible star to play a monstrous inhuman character.  (You'll see more of these from me in future DC fan-casting posts, trust me!)  My first thought, when picking Hilary Duff to play Summer Day, the cursed were-hyena, was the darkly comic juxtaposition between her beauty and a snarling, hairy beast.  My second thought was, she could easily play the sister of Dianna Agron, already cast as Doreen Day.

Slipknot/Christopher Weiss (Marlon Brando)

After the Joker and Catwoman, Slipknot is probably DC's most recognized villain.  To really do justice to this character, you need a serious Hollywood star.  Marlon Brando's breakout performances in On the Waterfront and A Streetcar Named Desire prove he has the acting chops to make this character every bit as formidable on the screen as he appears on the comics page.

Firehawk/Lorraine Reilly (Caroline Dhavernas)

Firehawk could make for a cool sidekick or professional rival in a third or fourth Firestorm movie.  I knew I wanted to use Caroline Dhavernas in my DC Universe fan-casting after watching her in the TV series Hannibal.  I wasn't sure what character she worked for until I remembered Firehawk.  Dhavernas still has youth and beauty, but she can also play stately and more mature, two valuable characteristics for someone like Lorraine Reilly.

There you have my fan-casted outline for two Firestorm movies.  I hope you enjoyed them almost as much as I hope Warner Bros. makes them.  My fan-casted Justice League trilogy will pickup again in a week or so.  See you then!

Fan-Casting DC's FIRESTORM: Part 4

Click here to review part 3.

In the previous post, I outlined my vision for Firestorm: The Nuclear Man, the first movie in a film franchise based on the DC Comics superhero, Firestorm.  Inspired by the first couple Firestorm comics by Gerry Conway and Al Milgrom, and borrowing heavily from the origin tropes utilized in Spider-Man and Iron Man, the movie finds college football star Ronnie Raymond fused with the mind of the brilliant physicist Martin Stein and gifted with amazing powers to transmute matter.

Additional powers include: flight, fire hair, puffy sleeves.

So, you ask, what are you going to do for an encore?

Relax, I shout, I'm getting to it!

Who's Who?

As I detailed last post, there are two options for the protagonist.  The star could be Ronnie Raymond, played by Reid Ewing.

If so, his father is Edward Raymond, played by Tony Goldwyn…

…and his girlfriend is Doreen Day, played by Dianna Agron.

Or the star could be Jason Rusch played by Donald Glover.

If so, his father is Alvin Rusch played by LeVar Burton…

…and his girlfriend is Gehenna played by Yifei Liu.

Either way, the hero of the first movie is written like Ronnie, and for most of this post I will refer to the lead character as Ronnie.

The Sequel

The second movie in the Firestorm movie franchise is called The Fury of Firestorm.  In typical sequel fashion, we witness an escalation in Firestorm's profile as well as the danger level.  The main villain strikes at the heart of the hero, leading to a profound and momentous character death.  The fallout of this death leads Firestorm down a path of anger and aggression.  When Firestorm at last confronts the murderous villain again, he must avenge his fallen friend without succumbing to darkness and losing himself in vengeance.

In the beginning of the movie, we find that some time has passed--a couple months to a year.  Ronnie is still in college, preparing for another football season.  Professor Martin Stein (David Strathairn) hasn't fared so well.  The nuclear meltdown that created Firestorm and Multiplex in the first film has tainted his credibility.  He lost his teaching job at Hudson University.  His relationships are pretty strained.  Maybe he's started drinking.

The one thing Professor Stein has committed to is halting the proliferation of nuclear reactor devices based on his own notes and inventions.  When we first see Stein in the sequel, he has chartered (or stolen) a helicopter and taken it to an offshore oil refinery or ship called The Neptune Explorer.  There, a scientist is creating a nuclear powered bathysphere for deep sea observation/exploration.  Stein tries to stop the experiment, and in the process, a research technician named David Drake is caught in the bathysphere when it sorta/kinda explodes and is transformed into Typhoon.

Typhoon/David Drake (Clifton Collins, Jr.)

Clifton Collins, Jr. plays a great thuggish bad guy, and that's what I was looking for in Typhoon.  Once given his incredible powers to control winds and rain and effectively become a giant storm, the actor's performance would be a lot of motion capture for CGI.  I also thought his ethnicity would bring a new, different intensity to the character.

So Typhoon emerges, literally mad with power and ready to destroy the oil rig/ship and everyone onboard.  Stein summons Ronnie (somehow), which comes at an inopportune time for the young man.  Maybe he's about to score in practice, or maybe he's about to score with Doreen.  Either way, he is transferred to the site the bathysphere meltdown and merges with Stein to become Firestorm!

Firestorm fights Typhoon over the water and has to stop the raging storm from devastating a coastal city.  Of course, thanks to Stein's brilliance, they come up with the saving formula to stop Typhoon.

This is all in the first fifteen to twenty minutes of the movie.  Typhoon is not our main villain; this intro is just an excuse to showcase another super villain with a power he haven't really seen before.  After that, we see more of the state of Ronnie and Stein's relationship.  Ronnie actually feels smothered by the older man, who wants to use the powers to fix his own mistakes, while Ronnie wants to enjoy his normal life.

Things between Ronnie and Stein begin to sour and they get into a fight.  At the same time, an old friend walks back into Stein's life.  Doctor Crystal Frost * was a student and research assistant of Stein's, and they were lovers at one time, before she went to Antarctica to study cold energy.  Crystal wants Stein's help in creating a lab at Hudson University where she can experiment on thermafrost.  Stein, at first, wants nothing to do with it, but she convinces him.  She wants to resume their former romance, but he rebukes her advances.

He helps her build the thermafrost lab, but something in the experiment goes wrong and the cold energy affects Crystal on a subatomic level, transforming her into the nightmarish Killer Frost.

Killer Frost/Crystal Frost (Mena Suvari)

For the part of Killer Frost, I wanted an actress who is beautiful, sexy, and young-but-not-too-young.  She shouldn't look like a college student, but she should be desirable to both Stein and Ronnie.  Mena Suvari has a history of enticing an older man in American Beauty, and I think there's a psycho chick in her waiting to get out.

Frost survives the accident and is put in a containment chamber where her new physiology can be studied.  Ronnie and Stein fight over the professor's culpability in the accident and say some harsh words to each other.  While Ronnie and Stein are basically breaking up with each other, Frost awakens and busts out of her containment field.

To live, she must now drawn heat into her body, which causes everything around her to freeze.  She kills the other doctors, kills the security guards that come after her.  Ronnie and Stein temporarily table their fight and become Firestorm so they can stop Killer Frost.

Their first fight with her goes horribly, tragically wrong.  They throw every energy blast and matter trick they can think of but they cannot stop her.  Killer Frost uses her power back at them, reducing the temperature so much that Ronnie begins to lose consciousness.  Killer Frost forces them to separate, and Ronnie and Stein fall to the floor as individuals.  Ronnie is out cold (pun!) and Stein staggers in a kind of daze.

Frost captures Stein in ice.  She's a little nuts, a little jilted ex-lover, and she blames him for her present condition, even though she begged him to make the thermafrost lab in the first place.  Killer Frost kisses Martin Stein, drawing all of his body heat into her, killing him.

Yeah.  Killer Frost kills Professor Stein.

To Be Continued…

* Crystal Frost is a ridiculous name that could only exist in comics.  The second Killer Frost was named Louise Lincoln, and maybe this one needs a name like that so it's not so distracting.