"Like what Chris Nolan is doing and what I’m doing with Superman, what they’ll do with Justice League will be its own thing with its own Batman and own Superman. We’ll be over here with our movie and they’ll kinda get to do it twice which is kinda cool," Zack Snyder said in March 2011 about the status of "Man Of Steel" and whether or not it would tie into a proposed "Justice League" movie. But a few things happened since then. Firstly, Warner Bros. would release "Green Lantern" a few months later and it would flop horribly, killing any chances of launching a new franchise. And this year, Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight Rises" puts an end to the latest version of Batman on the big screen, putting the character away for a few years until the inevitable reboot. What's a studio to do?
Well, last summer they quietly hired "Gangster Squad" writer Will Beall to pen a "Justice League" script, and while it was recently reported that the studio wasn't planning on any DC Comics movie hitting the big screen before 2015, perhaps they are getting their ducks in a row. According to a brief mention in a recent report by THR, the studio "will try to resuscitate Batman as a stand-alone franchise and/or as part of a planned 'Justice League' ensemble that could connect to next summer's 'Man of Steel.' "
Granted, that's pretty thin and the trade could be speculating a bit there, but it is intriguing (though the use of the word "resuscitate" to describe a billion dollar franchise is a bit odd). Certainly, tying "Justice League" into "Man Of Steel" makes way more sense than recasting the character again for a movie that would arrive (at the earliest) two years after Zack Snyder's film. And the idea of marketing two different Supermans to a moviegoing audience, potentially so close to each other, didn't really much sense to us either. But then again, if executive producer Christopher Nolan has shown, he likes his works to stand outside of any kind of canon, and some kind of Marvel style universe seems to antithetical to how he operates. But he's also just an EP, and thus may not hold as much sway on the movie than if he were a director. And with Snyder coming off two disappointments ("Sucker Punch," "Watchmen") he's not in any real place to negotiate for his movie to be a standalone piece.
Certainly, with Marvel showing they cold turn geek characters into a broadly appealing, billion dollar franchise with "The Avengers," everyone around town is paying attention. Will WB follow this model? Do you want them to? Time will tell, but let us know below.