Justice League of America Movie

Are you frightened about rumours of the casting for the Justice League America movie? It's not for release until 2010 according to IMDB, so they're still working on fleshing out the cast. Check out this petition, and convince yourself it's going to change minds.

Apparently, the first fourteen pages of the JLA movie script have been leaked. And they don't focus on introducing the characters; they focus on introducing the situation: the background of the plot and the plot. The author for the Daily POP suggests that since this is a DC storyline that the character introductions aren't as important. Generally speaking, DC heroes are icons while Marvel heroes are complex 'people.' Spiderman is Marvel. He's flawed. Superman is DC. He's not. That's a generalization, but the daily pop recommends you look at the failed DC movies where they tried to do character exposition as rationalization for the generalization. So the movie starts out, according to this possible fourteen pages, with most of the heroes attending a funeral. And then it pans back in time and you're introduced to the OMACs and Max Lord and the Brother Eye. So it sounds great; I think people will enjoy this, as most of the DC Icons that are in the JLA are familiar to us.

Joe, over at the Movie Show lists five well thought out reasons why the JLA movie might suck. I think he's trying to find the dark cloud around the silver lining. Yes, the JLA movie might suck. And it might be great. I'm betting on great, of course. But I'm worried about the length of the movie ( 90 minutes ) and the time needed to explain the characters before the plot rolls up. In a normal movie, you might have the first third or so of the movie doing basic character background stuff for the main characters. But the JLA is a team of seven characters, and thirty minutes will not be enough to give the audience context. That's my main concern; that the JLA movie will be more about a single character with the other heroes as window dressing. Most of the characters in the team, with the possible exception of the Martian Manhunter, are familiar enough to the target audience that they could have their own movie. I read that the executives are aiming at characters spinning off into their own movies after the JLA movie. I think this is backwards; just like Joe says "the JLA is the best of the best; these are established superheroes that come together for a bigger challenge." I think the windup character movies should come before the JLA movie.