JLA: The Movie – How it should be done (Part 3)

If you haven’t, please read Part 1 and Part 2 first.

Most pressing issue: We don’t know who’s playing Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, or Flash.

But before we get to these decisions, we have to make casting choices for our alternates. By alternates I’m referring to those heroes who might make it into movie:

Hawkman:

Gerard Butler comes off tough and Hawkman (in his post JLA days) is one really tough, ruthless, and uncompromising geezer. But maybe, part of Butler’s tough persona comes from his Scottish accent which sounds pretty rough and earthy. Don’t believe me? Get a Scotsman to say the words, “The Earth.” It’ll sound like he’s saying, “the airrrth.” And, no, Sean Connery doesn’t disprove this, for the simple reason that many native Scots can’t place his accent. No really, where’s Connery from?

I'll save the airrrth!

Viggo Mortenson could also do the tough Thanagarian flyer. Think of Aragon from Lord of the Rings. Yes, Viggo is Katar!

Carl Urban (as seen in Pathfinder and other movies) could also pull it. Perhaps I’m just nominating too many dudes who are used to having facial hair on screen.

Sam Worthington (Terminator: Salvation; Avatar, and Clash of the Titans [upcoming]) is an Australian, so we know he can act. In addition, he has this understated toughness that just screams bad ass! It’ll be Katar with shorter hair if he gets the nod.

Green Arrow:

Bradley Cooper strikes me as Ollie in his heyday (ladies’ man-wise, anyway). He would make a goatee work. I could picture him clashing with Flash.

Daniel Craig (best known as the current James Bond) might be a good choice. He resembles Green Lantern Alan Scott more strongly to me, though.

Josh Holloway (from Lost) may have Oliver’s verbal explosiveness down and gets many resemblance points (with the possible exception of his longer hair).

I’ve actually just thought of how Green Arrow can be used to greater effect on the Apokalips part of the mission. Picture this: Wonder Woman is fighting about half a dozen Furies and is going all Amazon warrior on their butts. It’s not every day, Diana can unleash like this, so she doesn’t hold back. She knocks out a couple. One particular Amazon K.O. victim catches Oliver’s eye (not in that way!). Her name is Artemis. She has a bow and arrow that Oliver simply must have. After Barda or Mr. Miracle checks that it doesn’t have that nasty ‘Darkseid is Love’ subliminal turn to the dark side effect, Green Arrow takes it to use in their battle. Now, for those of you are unfamiliar with Artemis’ weapon, her arrows are called synapse shafts and with good reason. She once shot Superman in the back and, although I doubt it pierced his skin, he fell from the sky screaming like a little girl that got startled by a spider. Yes, Ollie is going to have fun with them arrows!

Black Canary:

Scarlet Johannson? Cameron Diaz? But do they have the moxie / spunk / attitude to play Black Canary?

A slightly younger version could be Kristen Bell (former Veronica Mars)– she’s got that sass that Black Canary should have. You know, someone who isn’t afraid to put even legendary heroes in their place.

Aquaman:

Aquaman would only work if the movie had a JLA home team and away team structure. In other words, there would have to be crises to averted on Earth as well as battles on Apokalips. Arthur would have to on the home (Earth-based) team, because if hunger dogs (slaves) have been made to fight over water on Apokalips, then I’m pretty sure that there isn’t enough of the stuff in which to swim.

Brad Pitt? Hey, if Brad signs up and demands to play Arthur, it might the only reason Aquaman is even in the movie.

Josh Holloway is also candidate for this role. Well, he did that aftershave ad for television that involved him diving into water and isn’t that what Aquaman does best?

The Atom:

We couldn’t an actor small enough...


NEXT, WE HAVE TO CAST THE SUPPORTING CAST:

Desaad:

Lance Hendriksen (Bishop from Aliens, Frank Black from Millenium) or that creepy actor from Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers whose name I can’t recall.

ON TO THE BIG CHOICES:

Martian Manhunter:

He is the soul of the League. In terms of character, he’s a calm influence, a good leader, but also has other sides to him. Sometimes he comes off ‘all ET, but other times he’s straight out of aliens.’ This only occurs when necessary.
Hugo Weaving – Mister Weaving is a talented actor, but he’s also been mentioned as a possible Sinestro in the upcoming GL movie. Is there a rule about superhero double-dipping? Do the masses of make-up and CGI sequences required for both roles exempt him from such a rule?

David Boreanaz – As mentioned in Part One.

Zachary Quinto (Sylar from Heroes, Spock from Star Trek) – He might have the character-acting chops to pull it off.

Flash (Barry Allen):

Jason Statham looks like he should wear the Flash costume. I’ve never heard him speak in another accent, though.

Timothy Oliphant (from Hitman) might also make the grade. I can see him clashing with a Bradley Cooper Green Arrow.

Ben Affleck. No, seriously. When Mister Affleck emotes, he primarily uses the bottom half of his face and with flash’s mask covering the top half *...Yes, with Affleck we’ll need to add in Wally West eye-shields as well...

*Through the 1truegl’s independent study, he has found that Affleck uses the bottom half, Clooney uses the top half (special emphasis on eyebrow motions) and, by far the most confounding result, Keanu Reeves uses NEITHER top or half of his face to emote.

Chris Pine (Kirk from the latest Star Trek movie) could also do it.

After a quarter-minute of thought, my eye-shields comment made me realise that close-ups of the Flash’s eyes will be an important emotive device in our movie and Mister Pine brings a subtlety to the art of using the windows to the soul to bear his soul (can't believe I just wrote that!). I’ve never really thought about this until now, but in the comics Flash is often used to focus the attention of readers. Maybe, it’s his red costume. Perhaps, it’s the idea that when someone who can skim a room as fast as he can simply focuses on a single image, the reader knows that whatever Barry sees is important. When Superman or Batman is featured in such a comic panel, it’s generally a single emotion such as terror or shock, but Flash is usually given a multi-tonal emotion to convey. Or at least I’ve seen more Flash shots like this...

Barry Allen as Flash presents requirements of its own. For example, you need to cast an actor who would have great chemistry with Hal (Nathan Fillion).

Bloggers note: Actually, Mister Fillion has great chemistry with everyone. Heck, I don’t know a single person that doesn’t instantly like the characters he portrays. The man made brown a cool colour. Brown! He’d do the same for green, if given the chance.

Flash (Wally West):

Where are all the red-haired actors? Okay, so if Flash is Wally West, the speedster never takes off his mask.

Ewan McGregor?

Me play Flash?

I can’t seem to think of any fiery topped actors. Weird.

How about Robert Pattinson (from Twilight)? That’ll get another demographic in movie seats. Truth be told, I kind of see him as Gambit if they ever make X-MEN ORIGINS: GAMBIT.

But will my hair fit under the mask?

Question: What happens when Darkseid’s Omega effect collides with Speed Force inside a boom tube?
Answer: For one thing, Hal Jordan screams, “Barry!”

Wonder Woman:

Jennifer Connelly is the front runner here. Flowing, black tresses are a must for WW and Ms Connelly is blessed in that department. This may seem like a superficial requirement in many respects, but may I point to Blond Kate Bosworth as Brunette Lois Lane in the awful ‘Superman Returns’ or Jessica Alba’s dye-job in Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

Cobie Smulders (Robin from How I met your mother) has also been mentioned as a candidate. Smoulders...er...I mean...Smulders plays a sweet Canadian in that show. Can she portray the role of ‘the amazon ambassador to man’s world’?

Evangeline Lilly (Kate from Lost) is quite familiar with physical acting, which Wonder Woman actress will have to do in spades. When I saw her on the very first episode of the first season of Lost, I remember thinking...There’s Wonder Woman in her ambassador / visiting lecturer outfit...folowed by...Wait, they crashed on Themyscira? The cleaned-up, off-the-island, Evangeline has an even greater resemblance to Diana. [Note to producers: Get the stylist from Lost (season 4 and 5)]. In addition, there’s a groundswell of support on the internet for her to be cast in the role, including petitions and fan sites. Did I mention Jennifer Connelly as the front runner? Maybe, there should be a rethink...

Morena Baccarin (Inara from Firefly and Serenity) might have actually been in contention for the Wonder Woman movie while Joss Whedon’s non-period movie script (as required by the Powers that be) was under consideration. However, then those same Powers decided to go with a period script. Last I checked, that is. Rambling a bit...Anyway, with Morena we’d have built-in chemistry with Nathan Fillion! That, and I have a MASSIVE crush on her – reason enough for any casting decision.

Actually, I have a crush on all the WW candidates.

The stylistic inconsistency in the artwork of Wonder Woman’s solo comic title has resulted in many varied looks over the years and may, to a small degree, explain the vast number of actress nominations one comes across for the role.

Question: Are we going to see any of the badass Wonder Woman who while fighting Medusa blinded herself and lopped off the Gorgon Queen’s head with an axe? For those not into mythology, looking into medusa’s eyes would turn someone into stone or some other sort of a statue (not 100% sure on that detail). Still, bad-ass, right?

In screenplay-related news:

I’ve had to fire a screenwriter yesterday, but I’m sure you’ll agree the transgression warranted such action. Here’s what happened (or rather what he wrote in the script):
HAL: “Barro’s back and streakin’ days are here again!”

Now, first of all, Hal would never call Barry ‘Barro’. Secondly, ‘Barro’ sounds like barrow (as in wheel-barrow). Lame. Lastly, and worst of all, I instantly recognised the line “Barro’s back and streaking days are here again!” as a deliberate cut-and-paste job from “Stretcho’s back and clobberin’ days are here again!” as said by Ben Grimm (a.k.a. Thing from FF) referring to Mr. Fantastic. Yet another Marvel infiltrator...The last time a Marvel fan screenhack got passed vetting, the Joker wound up killing Batman’s parents. Never again! Why do those ‘nutso true believer red team’ people always try to sabotage our efforts?

We’ve decided to have the movie’s opening set in Gotham, where the audience sees a chase scene from 1st person perspective as Batman (the chaser). Batman is running across the rooftops chasing the chasee (a running thug carrying a rectangular box under his arm in the alleys below). Batman jumps the dude from above, knocking the box from him and sending the guy crashing to ground. We cut to 3rd person perspective. Dude pulls a weapon on Batman. Batman evades and throws a batarang in one motion, dislodging the weapon from the thug’s hand, but not before the shot goes off. Not a gun, a laser or energy blaster. Luckily, as a result of the batarang, it goes high, only slightly touching the alley wall. Batman proceeds to lay this guy out, picks up the weapon, opens the box (marked with a weird insignia) to find an even deadlier-looking weapon inside, and turns around to see the alley wall completely scorched from the shot that barely touched it. We get a close-up of Batman’s face, which says it all: Can’t have that...not in my city!

Meanwhile in Central City, Barry Allen is processing a crime scene: Incinerated bodies, same insignia on a similar empty box, and general signs of mayhem. Hey, it’s movie. We’re expected to take some liberties.

While in Metropolis, Superman helps defuse a stand-off between the Special Crimes Unit and operatives using the same advanced weaponry. We find out that they’re Intergang members.

Later, at the JLA watchtower / orbiting retreat / JL embassy / JL satellite (take your pick of HQs), Blue Devil and XXXX have shown up for membership try-outs. We meet J’onn and then Wonder Woman. Superman, Bats, and Flash arrive and call a meeting to discuss the increased Intergang activity and where they could’ve gotten the advanced weaponry. Blue Devil and XXXX get brushed off by Batman. J’onn apologises and offers to reschedule, but Blue Devil offers his help. So, does XXXX. J’onn tells them that it won’t be necessary. That’s when the trouble starts...

Teaser: There are also a few scenes where J’onn sees the Martian god of fire (and death), H’ronmeer, in the fire pits of Apokalips. Is it real or in his head or is it part of a new gods attack strategy? I’m not telling...

In part 4: We find out who XXXX is and who’s playing that role as well as who should be cast as Darkseid!