Christopher Nolan & Zack Snyder On ‘Justice League’: Weighing The Pros And Cons

Last night, movie super-scooper “El Mayimbe” of Latino-Review dropped his biggest nerd nuclear bomb of the year so far, revealing in a video message on his website that Warner Brother’s Justice League movie, which last we heard was once again in limbo, is indeed anything but. He revealed that Warner Brothers has hired Christopher Nolan to produce a Justice League film, with Zack Snyder probably directing and, most likely, David Goyer writing the script. In other words, the exact same creative team behind this summer’s Man of Steel.

Perhaps the biggest news in all this is that Warner Brothers wants Christian Bale to resume the mantle of Batman, which means instead of JL introducing the world to a whole new Batman, as was said to be the original plan, the movie would play off the continuity of Nolan’s previous Batman movies. This is all a bit of a shocker, as Nolan has insisted these last few years that his Batman saga is a stand alone story, unrelated to any larger DC cinematic universe. In fact, he has denied involvement with any Justice League movie project in the past. And while this was all probably true when he said it, nothing can change one’s mind quite like having a Brinks truck full of millions of dollars in cash brought to your house, as Warner Brothers surely did to get him on board in some capacity, and help save Justice League from potential disaster.

The inclusion of Nolan and potentially Bale just made the budget of this movie skyrocket into the stratosphere; these guys are not going to come cheap. But Warners must realize they stand to gain so much more by including them, it is worth the price. Right now, Disney has not only Marvel and Star Wars, but two of the biggest names with geek cred attached to them in the form of Joss Whedon and JJ Abrams.

To have Justice League even come close to competing with them, they know they have to pull out all the stops, and that means bringing in Nolan and Bale, and throwing lots of $$$ at them to get them to play along. While geeks everywhere are likely doing a happy dance at this news, I’m here to weigh the pros and cons to a Christopher Nolan produced Justice League. While this is surely good news…that doesn’t mean there won’t be any potential downsides to it.

The Pros

The positives of a Christopher Nolan produced Justice League are obvious; for starters, he is easily the greatest genre filmmaker to come out of the past decade, hands down. Having a talent like Nolan overseeing  Justice League  in a “godfather” capacity means that you’ll have someone with excellent taste who knows crap when they see it, and won’t tolerate something half-assed and low quality. It doesn’t meant the movie is going to be automatically good, but it does mean it will have integrity and not just be seen by the general population as a knock-off of The Avengers (and yes, I know the Justice League came before the Avengers in the comics–the average moviegoer does not know that.) His name alone attached to this project adds a level of quality and prestige (no pun intended.)

Up until now, the only name creatively attached to Justice League was a writer from the television show Castle. This excited exactly no one. Warner Brothers knows they need a name with both geek cred and mainstream cred to compete with Abrams and Whedon over at Disney. And for them, those names are Nolan and Snyder. And by making the Justice League movie an extension of the multi-billion dollar Dark Knight franchise, this instantly makes the film an event for not just geeks, but for moviegoers all over the world. It is the safe choice and the smart choice.

The Cons

Yes, believe it or not, there may be cons to a Nolan produced Justice League. My biggest, and really only, concern is that Christopher Nolan just doesn’t really like super-heroes all that much. He has stated as much in interviews in the past. Sure, in many many ways, his Dark Knight trilogy is closer to the comic book incarnations than anything yet put to film about Batman (except maybe the Bruce Timm/Paul Dini animated series from the 90s.) However, Nolan also has a serious penchant for “de-comic booking” almost every aspect of Batman’s world as to appear more “real.” For the most part, that worked like gangbusters on Batman.

The jury is still out on whether or not it worked for Superman, but so far, the early buzz is very, very good. But there is simply no way to de-comic book a concept like the Justice League. Aside from Batman and Superman, you have a guy with what amounts to being a magic ring, an immortal Amazon, and a guy who can run at the speed of light. Much like the Avengers, the JL is pure comic book tropes in all their multi-colored glory. I seriously hope we don’t get a ‘realistic” explanation, Inception style, for how the Flash’s power works, or how Green Lanterns ring functions, or any of that. It just isn’t needed.

Hopefully, Nolan allows writer David Goyer (who I’m just going to assume is going to be writing this) to take the reins of the story here; he’s a fanboy writer who is steeped in comics lore, and even co-wrote a lengthy run on Justice Society of America with Geoff Johns in the early 2000’s. The best thing Nolan can do is stay out of the way of Goyer as he comes up with the story mechanics, because Goyer understands the dynamics of a big, cosmic super-team stuff in a way Nolan probably never will. Goyer’s weakness is his dialogue, but then that’s where Christopher Nolan’s brother Jonah usually steps in and helps out.

Whatever ends up happening, we don’t need a grim, realistic take on the Justice League. In my opinion, the two very best incarnations of the team are Grant Morrisson’s run on the comic from 1996-2000, and the Bruce Timm produced animated series. Both were colorful, wild, and filled with big ideas, but were not campy or cheesy. That is where their inspiration should come from. If Synder does indeed direct (which would be likely) based on his past movies he is certainly not afraid of the more comic-booky aspects of the League.

Ultimately, this is a very minor “con”–especially since Nolan won’t be directing the movie and will have less need to force his own aesthetics onto the final product. In the case of a Justice League movie, having Nolan involved will ultimately mean much more pros than cons in the end.

So What Can We Expect?

Assuming this is all true of course, we know next to nothing about what a Nolan/Snyder Justice League movie would look like, but it is likely that Warner is starting from scratch with the story and script. Which probably means no Darkseid as the villain, as he was reported to be in Will Beall’s now tossed-out script. One thing I do expect to stay is the idea of a “five members only” League, especially now with Nolan involved. Aquaman and Martian Manhunter are just a  wee bit too fanciful for Nolan’s aesthetic, and even if he isn’t directing, I’d imagine his first suggestion would be to keep the cast trimmed down and get rid of those two characters. But DC’s “Big Five” of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash and Green Lantern are sure to be included. They are the core of the League, and to be fair, the core of the entire DC Universe.

Since 1940, in one way or another, DC Comics has been publishing these five heroes continuously in some form; only Flash and Green Lantern were considered popular enough to have their own comic books alongside Supes, Bats and Wonder Woman in the 40’s, and although they went away in 1952, they were revived in new forms just a few short years later and have been published continuously ever since. No other DC super hero characters can claim such long uninterrupted runs, which is why these five characters are the backbone of the DCU, and are certain to be included in a JL movie. Anything or anyone else is gravy. But bank on those five being on the team, no matter how much Chris Nolan may hate the idea of magic green rings.

Another question is whether a movie like Justice League come together in time for summer 2015 at this point. While it seems unlikey, remember Joss Whedon was not officially announced to direct the Avengers until Comic-Con 2010, two years before that movie came out. And that turned out just fine. So it isn’t impossible, especially if this is something that they have been working on in secret for some time.

So What About The  Future Of The Batman Franchise?

Up until now, the party line has been that Justice League was set to introduce us to an all new incarnation of Batman, who would then be spun-off into a whole new Batman movie series. If Bale returns instead, his role will probably be strictly limited to appearing in Justice League movies, and his asking price for that alone will probably break the bank. So forget fourth, fifth and sixth solo Batman installments with Bale starring in them. So does that mean no Batman movies while a JL movie series is happening? A movie series that could possibly go on for a decade?

There is an obvious solution to this–you make the new Batman film franchise based on 90’s animated series Batman Beyond. This way, you can have a younger Bruce Wayne appear in the JL, and an old Bruce (with another actor–maybe Clint Eastwood, whenever he’s not busy talking to chairs) appear in Batman Beyond training a new protege in the future.  Warner Brothers probably saw the lukewarm reaction fans had to Sony rebooting Spider-Man so quickly, and fearing a similar reaction to having “Batman Begins… Again!” so soon probably made them re-think their strategy. A Batman Beyond movie series is the “have your cake and eat it too” solution, as it would keep the two franchises from conflicting with each other.

Of course, this is all still rumor at this point, but “El Mayimbe” has quite the track record when it comes to these scoops (and if turns out to be false, expect Latino-Reviews credibility to plummet just as fast as it went up.) If it is true though, then Justice League just possibly went from being an industry and fanboy joke to being a real contender.