The Wall Street Journal wrote a big piece on Justice League today, and it included lots of cool bits of information about how the movie came together and what the future of DC Films will look like.
When Geoff Johns and Jon Berg became the heads of DC Films last year, their first task was to give Justice League a last minute rewrite to make the movie “less serious and more hopeful”, a clear response to the criticism of the dark and serious Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Much has been made about Justice League’s runtime, but the WSJ says it was Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara who made it clear that he wanted the movie to be under two hours. The final official runtime for Justice League is 1 hour and 59 minutes. Mission accomplished!
When Justice League director Zack Snyder turned in a cut of the movie to WB executives earlier this year, they felt that it was lighter but still weren’t completely satisfied. That’s when Joss Whedon was brought in to do a rewrite of the script for the reshoots. Whedon had already been working with Warner Bros. on a Batgirl movie.
“A lot of the work was integrating the two tones and making it feel like one movie,” a source told the WSJ. Early test screenings were positive, and scored close to Wonder Woman achieved in its own test screenings.
2018 will be a “reset year”, with a focus on more director driven visions for individual superhero movies, rather than the pressure of making things fit into one big story over the course of several movies.
“We don’t want to limit the creativity filmmakers can bring to the table by saying these characters have to come in a particular order and all fit into the same universe,” said Warner Bros. president Toby Emmerich.
Emmerich said that Warner Bros. is working on a “super robust slate” of DC movies, including Batgirl, a solo Batman movie, Green Lantern Corps, and two different takes on the Joker. He also said that a solo Flash movie is a priority for the company.
SOURCE: The Wall Street Journal
