by Edward Gross
With an announcement of casting reportedly coming within the next couple of weeks, director George Miller’s take on Justice League should be in front of the cameras in Australia early next year for a 2009 release. In the second part of our interview with DC’s Gregory Noveck, we discuss the power of the Justice League script written by Kiernan and Michele Mulroney, as well as the fate of Bryan Singer’s sequel to Superman Returns, Man of Steel. Look for Noveck’s views of the new line of made-for-DVD DC animated movies, particularly Justice League: New Frontier, in the next issue of Movie Magic magazine (on sale December 17th) and, at about the same time, on this site.
VOICES FROM KRYPTON: There are so many rumors on the Internet, including that Bryan Singer’s Man of Steel is not happening. Is that film still on the table?
GREGORY NOVECK: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
VOICES FROM KRYPTON: Well, the word is that it’s been put on “indefinite hold” because of Justice League.
GREGORY NOVECK: That’s not true. The reason that Justice League is powering forward first is because the script came in and it was phenomenal.
VOICES FROM KRYPTON: It’s really that good?
GREGORY NOVECK: It is, and that very rarely happens in Hollywood on a movie of this scale, and when it does you have no choice but to say, “We’d better catch lightning in a bottle and go!” All of a sudden, six months later, who knows what’s going to happen? You want to hold on to those writers, you’ve got massive interest from directors, you land someone like George Miller, so you go. And in the middle of it all, you’ve got Bryan going off to make another movie, which was a passion project of his. When he comes back, we’ll dive right in to Man of Steel. We’re scripting and it’s going to happen. We’re not going to make it until the script is great, but we’ll get there one way or the other and it’s not going to take nine years.
VOICES FROM KRYPTON: I think Bryan has said this himself, but the difference between Superman Returns and Man of Steel needs to be the difference between Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Wrath of Khan.
GREGORY NOVECK: I think that’s accurate, absolutely. But I think what Superman Returns did was that, at the very least, it brought the character back to the forefront and got people talking about him. The thing with Batman is that Batman will always be cool because he’s an iteration of your Id. He a cool, dark character who has the cool toys, has no remorse and yet there’s a moral line that he won’t cross. Plus he’s got a great, tragic back story. You never have to worry about Batman going out of style because of those elements. With Superman there’s always that thing that he’s not cool anymore, he’s got the blue suit and the red cape and he’s such a product of his era. How do you update it? But I think one of the things that Bryan was really successful at conveying in the movie, is that you don’t need to update that. It’s iconography that’s so universal at this point, that you just have to maintain it. Now does that mean you can have a more action-packed story and play up the relationships? Of course, but it doesn’t mean let’s have Versace design the cape.
VOICES FROM KRYPTON: And you don’t have to, as Jon Peters tried to do for 10 years, get him out of the costume or depower him.
GREGORY NOVECK: No, because I think the minute you do that, you’ve screwed up and it’s no longer Superman. That was the problem with so much of the development of the project for years.
VOICES FROM KRYPTON: I liked Superman Returns, but like I said, I should have loved it and I couldn’t.
GREGORY NOVECK: Look, I totally understand the criticism. For me, it was such a struggle to get to that point and I thank God every day that Bryan said, “I want to do it,” because he at least came in with a respect for the character.
VOICES FROM KRYPTON: Earlier you mentioned how strong the Justice League script was, which I’m glad to hear, because, again, the Internet is alive with people screaming that given the speed at which it’s coming together, there’s no way it can be good.
GREGORY NOVECK: No, we’re rushing it because the script came in so good. There was no mandate that we had to go and make this movie. What created the mandate was you had a strong script with all of these characters and there’s a window, so you go and do it.
VOICES FROM KRYPTON: I was just surprised because these writers seemed to come out of nowhere.
GREGORY NOVECK: To the greater populatce the Mulroneys seemed to come out of nowhere, but they were fairly accomplished within Hollywood and they were responsible for a lot of great stuff in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. What’s great about Kiernan and Michele is that they came in – Kiernan was a comic reader as a kid, but hadn’t followed it for a long time – and approached it with an understanding that the characters are characters that deserve some reverence. They are very much character writers. All of the conflict and everything else has to come from a place of character, and the action is second. The movie is action-packed, there’s a ton of stuff, but it’s not like the typical Hollywood blockbuster where it’s, like, “Oh, big action sequence. And why do we care?” I think part of the reason that so many responded so strongly to the script is because you just have these wonderful interactions between the characters. And this apart from the plot, which is strong and makes sense and tracks and people, when they see the movie, will be able to say, “Okay, I totally understand how all this can happen within this world.” I think part of the reason you go is that you want to see Superman and Batman have a conversation. And what is that conversation? You want to see how all of these men react when Wonder Woman first walks on screen. If you’re a normal, red-blooded male or even a Martian-blooded mail, what does it mean to be confronted by this goddess?
VOICES FROM KRYPTON It’s like Ursula Andress coming out of the water in Dr. No.
GREGORY NOVECK: Exactly. And the Mulroneys really understood that each one of these characters automatically changes the dynamic of the room as soon as they walk in, because they all have such different powers and back stories. They approached each one of these characters as an individual and as a unique character that influences everything else around them.
FOR PART ONE OF THIS INTERVIEW, JUST CLICK HERE.
CHECK OUT OUR SISTER SITE JUSTICE LEAGUE ON FILM, BY CLICKING HERE.
this sounds like a studio fluff piece from a guy who's towing the company line. If SR wasnt dead, we'd be talking about it now instead of this horrid JLA film. They're not gonna delay a franchise that they feel is successful b/c they got a "hot script." They'd go with the proven commodity and save the hot script for another day. It's not like it could go to another studio since WB owns the characters anyway.
Posted by: Brian | October 17, 2007 at 09:14 PM