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 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.

Fan-Casting DC's FIRESTORM: Part 3

Click here to review part 2.

Last time, I posted my choices for the characters who combine to make the hero Firestorm.  Casting the protagonist comes down to one question: black or white.

No undertones were harmed in this picture.

I've cast Reid Ewing as Ronnie Raymond for the classic Firestorm, or Donald Glover as Jason Rusch for the newer Firestorm.  Whichever direction we go, the hero for the first movie will be treated like the stud athlete Ronnie.

What other superhero has the awesome power
of Hula Hoops?

The Origin Movie

The first movie is called Firestorm: The Nuclear Man, and it would follow a pretty standard superhero origin structure as near-perfected by Marvel Studios with their movies.  Obviously, it would also borrow heavily from Firestorm's first comic appearances (pictured: right), which deftly introduced all the principal characters who would appear in this first movie.

Firestorm's origin was conceived as an homage to Spider-Man, so much of the character and thematic beats of the movie would mirror Spider-Man's.  But in order to give the movie a little distance from the Wall-Crawler's origin, which has been told twice in the last decade, I would make a few minor adjustments.

First, I would age the protagonist (Ronnie or Jason: I'll call him Ronnie) a couple years.  Instead of captaining his high school football team, Ronnie is a college football star at Hudson University.  That way, we have a more natural explanation for how Ronnie meets Professor Stein (David Strathairn) and gets caught in a nuclear blast.  We want to avoid repeating the Peter Parker destiny of getting irradiated during the worst supervised school field trip ever.

So in the beginning of the story, Ronnie is a cocky football star, maybe a Heisman Trophy candidate.  He's big man on campus, and he's got a terrific girlfriend.

Doreen Day (Dianna Agron)

Dianna Agron has the look, the age, and she can act the part.  I didn't think long about this one; I didn't have to.  Doreen isn't a big or complicated part, but she can be a source of conflict for Ronnie.  Unlike her depiction in the comics, which was kind of a nag, Doreen in this movie is supportive to a point.  Maybe she's Ronnie's physics tutor, too, so he can stay eligible for the team.

Did I say physics tutor?  Oh, that's right, because Ronnie is enrolled in the course taught by Professor Martin Stein, who is teaching for a year while he works with the university to create a fancy sci-fi fusion/fission reactor thingamajig.

At some point early on, Ronnie gets in trouble and faces disciplinary action by the university.  Ronnie gets lured into a fight with Cliff Carmichael, a young genius and pompous teacher's pet.

Cliff Carmichael (Charlie McDermott)

Again, this casting decision was based on age and appearance more than anything.  I haven't seen any of Charlie McDermott's movies because I don't see a lot of movies anymore, especially those with younger casts.  But hey, I'm sure he could do it, and the point of Carmichael at all is to lay seeds for his future as a villain far down the line.

Anyway, we see that Cliff Carmichael clearly instigates the fight, calling Ronnie a dumb jock and such, maybe even antagonizing Doreen.  Ronnie is simply defending himself and his girlfriend, but with the media scrutiny on him, any trouble is big trouble.  Ronnie's stern father, Edward Raymond, meets with the University to resolve the issue without getting his son kicked out of school or off the football team.

Edward Raymond (Tony Goldwyn)

Really, where's Tony Goldwyn been for a decade?  This guy was all over the place in the '80s and '90s, and he always played kind of a douche.  I guess he ran out of those roles because he's been directing TV for a while now.  I think he could easily play an unforgiving father who is thoroughly unimpressed by his son's superstar status, but goes to bat for him with the university to protect his own image more than anything.

Though his Heisman Trophy contention takes a hit, Ronnie's college career is saved with the condition that he performs some kind of work study or community service activity, and that puts him in Professor Stein's lab.  (It would make sense that Carmichael was working/interning for Stein; maybe Ronnie has to replace Carmichael.)

Now Ronnie has a working relationship with Stein and we witness a bond being formed despite their contradictory natures.  Or… they could hate each other.  More conflict makes for better story, so either way works.  Through Ronnie or Stein, we meet the professor's lab assistant, the unscrupulous Danton Black.

Multiplex/Danton Black (Simon Woods)

I really enjoyed Simon Woods' time on HBO's Rome.  He played a conniving, sleazy little bastard very well, and I think he could inject that same kind of energy into the film's villain, Danton Black.

Fast-forwarding a bit, eventually we discover Danton Black's treachery.  He's been stealing the secrets of Professor Stein's reactor to sell them.  Stein discovers this one fateful night and the two men fight in the lab and the reactor is damaged.  It goes critical.  Ronnie happens to be there, maybe working, or maybe coming back to apologize to Stein for doing something stupid.  There could be other people around, people who need to be evacuated, but Ronnie does the one selfless thing and rushes back to get Stein (or Black) out of the blast zone.

Of course, he fails, or this would be a very different kind of movie.

The fusion effect bonds Ronnie and Professor Stein, merging their bodies into one nuclear powered being, driven by Ronnie with Stein riding shotgun.  The powers of Firestorm include the ability to transmute matter to different states and forms.  Getting diamonds out of coal is as simple as recalling the chemical compositions of the desired element.  An iron cage can become jello with the snap of his fingers.  This power is limited, however, to inorganic matter.  He cannot point to a bank robber, for instance, and instantly change the man into solid stone.  Nor can he turn his fists into titanium when punching a bad guy.

His other powers include flight, a somewhat enhanced degree of strength and invulnerability, and the power to unleash bolts of fiery energy.  Plus: fire hair!

The merging of of Ronnie and Professor Stein is not permanent.  With great mental effort, they separate so as to return to their individual lives.  But when some kind of danger arises, Ronnie or Stein can reignite the Firestorm matrix by will, telepathically siphoning the other into their combined form.  (The rules for this back-and-forth transformation will have to be clearly defined for the audience.  Questions about their proximity to each other and who controls what are bound to arise.  Some changes from the original source material will probably have to be changed here.)

The second act of the movie is the Learning Curve.  We watch Ronnie and Stein learn to grapple with this thing they inadvertently created.  Playing with their powers.  Getting creative.  Lots of opportunity for humor, and naturally some kind of montage set to popular music.  Along the way, we'll raise and answer questions about our characters.  How does Ronnie feel about being part of Firestorm?  Would he enjoy the power?  Would he want to be a high-flying superhero that protects people?  Or would he feel shackled by the responsibility?  Would he chafe under Professor Stein's constant judgement?  How would this affect his romance with Doreen and how would it affect his status on the football team?

How does Martin Stein feel about this?  Guilty?  Proud?  Terrified?  Would he feel compelled to use this power for the benefit of all mankind when it actually involves risk to his own life?  Can he trust Ronnie to follow his advice and do what's right?  Or is this power too dangerous to ever be used by even a learned man such as himself, let alone an irresponsible college kid?

Meanwhile, as our hero(es) take their appropriate steps forward and back, we witness the rise of Firestorm's first true villain.  Danton Black was also caught in the nuclear blast.  While Ronnie and the professor were fused together, Danton was stricken by the machine's fission effect.  His body was split into a bazillion identical atoms, with his consciousness spread out among them all.  He pulls himself back together, rebuilding his physical structure, but as he does so, he discovers that he now has the ability to replicate himself and control each cloned body.  He was already backstabbing intellectual property thief, but the effect of splitting his mind over so many different bodies is enough to drive him crazy.  Thus, he becomes the villain known as Multiplex.

Naturally, in the third act of the film Ronnie and Professor Stein must set aside any problems they have with either each other or the weight of being Firestorm so they can save the day.  Multiplex becomes a serious threat.  Maybe he's trying to reproduce the nuclear accident from Stein's notes, either to undo the effect or to replicate it on everyone in the city.  Whatever his mad scheme actually is, it puts Doreen Day in danger, if not the entire Hudson University campus.

Firestorm can't just blast Multiplex because his powers don't work on people, so he needs to get creative.  Maybe Professor Stein's voice is blocked, or he's somehow incapacitated, necessitating that Ronnie remember something he learned in school and applying it in a real life situation.

Whatever.  It doesn't really matter how it goes down, but Firestorm thwarts the evil scheme of Multiplex.  Danton Black is killed or captured or maybe duplicated into so many different clone bodies that he loses mass and becomes small, or his consciousness diminishes and each duplicate is nothing but a mindless, drooling vegetable.  (I also have this image in my mind of Ronnie or Firestorm coaxing his entire football team to rumble with a horde of Multiplex duplicates.  Seems silly, but I still kind of want to see something like that.  Go figure.)

By the end of the movie, all is relatively well.  Ronnie and Stein understand each other, respect each other, and appreciate each other.  Ronnie loses his Heisman, and maybe he loses his girl.  But he knows what is really important to him.  He'll keep playing football and keep going to school, but when the time arises, he will gladly become Firestorm, and step up to protect humankind from whatever evil threatens to destroy it.

Is this an original story?  No, but that's the point.  It doesn't have to be.  Beyond pilfering specific plot points and scenes from the first two issues of the Firestorm comic, it's a paint by numbers plot line for superhero origins.  It doesn't have to be revolutionary, it just has to be.  And it can be.  This movie can work, because it already has.

Warner Bros. and DC: go make Firestorm: The Nuclear Man a movie like I just did!

To Be Continued…

In the next installment, I'll breakdown the sequel and provide the cast for Firestorm's rogues gallery.