A lot of ‘to do’ and ‘ruckus’ has been made over how Warner Brothers should go about making a Justice League movie. Does Batman need to show up at the end of Man of Steel? How do we introduce people to all the characters? Should there be nipples?
While Marvel has had insane success with the first phase of their movie universe by bridging multiple hero movies into a shared storyline leading to The Avengers, 99% of all other movies with an ensemble cast typically manage to give you a story and characters within the first 10 or 15 minutes. And if Avengers has taught us anything about audiences at super hero movies, you don’t need to justify crazy powers, clashing genres, or put everyone in dark black leather. The crowd just wants to be entertained.
So my advice to Warner Brothers? Regardless of how Man of Steel does, just go make a Justice League movie. People know who Superman and Batman are, a lot of people kind of remember Wonder Woman, and that’s really all you need to get on board.
In fact, to help out, I’ve graciously spent 15 minutes of my life outlining a movie for you and casting the roles. You’re welcome. Please pay me. I need to see a dentist.
JUSTICE LEAGUE!
So the first thing you need to do is give a quick nudge to where we are in the world. And how do we do that without Iron Man touch screen and holo displays? THE NEWS. Show us all 17 24 hour news channels in the DCU doing a quick blitz of President Lex Luthor, who was elected after the entire city of Gotham was held ransom by Bane and is now entering his second term with a strong anti metahuman agenda in response to Superman, explaining that in the wake of the recent death of American fighter pilot Steve Trevor, who crashed on a mysterious Amazon Island, which recently appeared out of no where, these strange Amazon warrior tribes represents a clear and present danger to the United States and we’re gonna wipe the place out. USA! USA! USA!
Yeah that’s right, suck it Marvel! Ed Norton as Lex Luthor! I’m about to American History X a bunch of superheroes with SCIENCE! Eat a dick, Ruffalo!
We cut to chaotic footage of the D Day style invasion of the Amazon Island. It looks like a modern Saving Private Ryan but with 300 looking warrior ladies instead of Nazis.
“Victor can you believe all chicks with swords? It looks like something out of Revenge of the Titans, a great movie I saw in 3D 7 times! OH GOD ARROWS!” A young terrified marine named Victor Stone (John Boyega) saves a buddy with awesome movie taste by punching out a warrior lady but then gets nailed by a ton of friendly fire and some guy is like OH GOD MEDIC! And they cut back to Amy Adams as anchor Lois Lane at Daily Planet and she’s like ‘yeah so that was an awful thing to see. Here’s some cats in a wheelbarrow.’
Yeah I just watched Attack the Block. So what?
We cut from the Victor Stone POV to a bunch of armored ladies forcing Princess Diana (that’s unfortunate) to evacuate because they need to make sure she’s safe and protected. Throw in some statues that look exactly like Lucy Lawless because who else would play Hippolyta in the eventual Wonder Woman movie? We get some tossed in lines about ‘that man that crashed in the iron bird…I thought he would recover! What happened?!’
Hi, I’m Katrina Law. I’m on the show Spartacus where I kick the crap out of people and am super beautiful. I’m literally the only actress on the planet currently qualified to play Wonder Woman.
The Amazons maybe didn’t kill that pilot like the president says they did? OH SNAP SOMETHING IS ROTTEN ON THE ISLAND OF… Does it have a name? Sorry, I’ve been spending all my money on Avengers books my whole life. How stoked are you guys about Marvel Now? LOTS of really cool titles dropping and…Ok.
JUSTICE LEAGUE.
That’s where you throw the title. See? Just jump into this shit. Instead of overthinking about how to make this OK for an audience, just punch them in the face with it, show them how cool it looks to have Xena chicks beating the shit out of the cast of Blackhawk Down and have them be like ‘holy balls, what the eff word?!’ when the title drops. In addition to blowing everyone’s minds out of their buttholes, now we know Batman exists and that the Nolan Bat movies and Man of Steel are this movie’s Phanton Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, and A New Hope. Welcome to Empire Strikes Back.
Wait Joe! Remember at the end of TDKR when Batman retires and the Looper guy replaces him? Well, we’ll deal with that later. Ok? Hey look, a private jet owned by Wayne Enterprises!
Bruce Wayne is watching the news on the invasion from his private jet.
Bruce: “It’s hell over there, Alfred. A completely unprovoked act of aggression on a people we know nothing about.”
Alfred is played by Michael Caine again because that dude doesn’t turn anything down ever.
Alfred: “Well sir, perhaps you could show them what happens to acts of aggression in your city.”
Bruce: “That’s the problem, Alfred. This isn’t my city.”
Reveal of METROPOLIS! Batman is in Metropolis! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH.
Honestly? I don’t know who the hell should play Batman. But right now I’m going with Dustin Clare, because male DC heroes should never be played by American actors. ‘But a Bruce Wayne this young could never fit the Nolan timeline!’ you say? New 52 Batman banged Talia and had a 12 year old son in 5 years.
Argument invalid.
DAILY PLANET: Clark! Get in here! Yeah Perry? You’re covering the premiere of Honey Booboo The Movie tonight! But I thought I was covering President Luthor’s dinner? Are you kidding? You look awful on camera. Lane is covering the dinner! You’re covering this crap. GET ON IT.
People keep telling me I need to learn how to format scripts and I keep telling them to stop trying to hold me down. That scene was magic.
Also this movie needs to have a sense of humor about Green Lantern, where people always mention that they heard about what happened in Green Lantern and no one believes any of it because it just sounds ridiculous.
At the dinner, Luthor reinforces his stance on metahumans, that aliens like this…Superman not only spit at the law, they spit at the human spirit and the idea of human achievement. But in the spirit of human achievement, thanks to a partnership between Lexcorp and the Pentagon, the poster boy casualty of the Amazon Invasion, Victor Stone, has been saved! Project: Cyborg! Cyborg, covered in lots of cloth and gauze, waves to the cameras and asks the President when he can get back out there! Everyone claps because America. Also, Lois Lane hits on Bruce Wayne a bunch! “Hey Bruce we all thought you were dead after the Bane incident but when you ended up being fine we were all weirded out that you didn’t take your house back from those orphans and he’s like ‘Lets just say Gotham is in good hands and I’m focusing on a global scale.” See? Addressed. At some point he decided to unretire and then wink at the Grant Morrison fans with a seriously thin Batman Inc reference. It’s this movie’s unfinished Cap shield.
And then Diana from the Island busts in and is all like YOUR FAULT! ALL OF IT! Bruce Batmans up in a some kind of bad ass mobile costume suit up sequence and defends the president against her! It’s the first Batman sighting since the Gotham City siege!
Hey! Also in the room! It’s a catering guy! It’s a misplaced plane! No! It’s Superman! Still played by Henry Cavill because I really want his movie to be awesome! High powered Lexcorp soldiers led by Amanda Waller still played by Angela Basset who’s been by the President’s side in like every scene he’s in are escalating the crap out of things! The president points to the cameras and says C WE REALLY NEED 2 DO SOMETHING THESE GUYS R A MENACE K THANX. Lexcorp troops are going to kill Wonder Woman and Superman is all like woah due process and they’re ‘like suck a dong Superman’ and so he grabs Wonder Woman and Batman and flies them to THE FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE. Wonder Woman and Superman fight because she’s freaked out and he locks her in a cell because chill lady.
Batman and Superman take a moment to size each other up. Everyone gets boners in the audience, except for people who are wondering where Thor is. You know where he is? He’s a hot lady in a cell in the Fortress of Solitude because Wonder Woman should be DC’s Greek God based Thor and her movie should have been the Clash of the Titans remake but in present day and how hard is that to figure out?
President Luthor announces a big Skynetty computer AI defense system to track and deal with metahuman threats. He laughs and reminds everyone that people always accuse him of being a Brainiac so that’s what it’s being nicknamed. Batman tries to check out the Brainiac project by breaking into Lexcorp. In one room he sees a big global map with different areas located, squints his eyes and says ‘Atlantis…?’ and then Cyborg attacks him because these heroes have to get on the same page, am I right??
But then it turns out that Luthor built Brainiac with what he thought was Krypton tech but it turns out to be whatever it is that Brainiac actually is and I’m not exactly sure what that is because looking at his Wikipedia page gave me a migraine. But any way, Brainiac attacks and Cyborg is saving people and Batman is in the holding cell Cyborg and Amanda Waller dumped him in all like ‘let me help you’ and Wonder Woman is like ‘let me help you’ to Superman and he’s all like ‘I dunno lady I’m a boy scout and you’re dangerous’ and she’s all ‘ughhhhh you’re an idiot but also my sexy male equivalent.’
And then Brainiac hits the Fortress of Solitude and trashes it. It’s on. Superman and Wonder Woman show up in Metropolis to fight it’s AI hordes. Cyborg goes against orders and lets Batman out and the team comes together. At some point Batman picks up a bow and arrow and says WELL THIS IS JUST STUPID staring right into the camera. Eventually Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, and Cyborg beat Brainiac through a series of progressively escalating CG action pieces that make up most of the third act of the movie and the world forgives Warner Brothers for Batman and Robin but not for the Matrix sequels.
NEVER FORGET
Brainiac not being completely dead is teased. At the end of the movie after the good guys win, Supes salvages the fortress to begin building a new structure so that they can keep an eye over the world they’re trying to protect. You know, like an Avengers Watchtower.
And then Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern shows up and Batman is like ‘oh, you’re real?’ and in the background a wacky homeless guy who earlier bet another homeless guy that ‘there’s no way a guy ever fought a purple jizz fog because how stupid does that sound?’ just quietly hands his buddy three bucks. And Green Lantern says ‘But seriously guys, I hate to sound ridiculous, but I’m a galactic peacekeeper, and Earth is about to be invaded. By Mars.’ And then there is this crazy shot of White Martian fleets mobilizing.
HEY we’re in the sequel to rub John Carter in Disney’s face a little more!
And there you go. You get the big three anchored by a young every man people can get behind because he served his country. You get Lex Luthor as a legit bad guy that isn’t scamming real estate agents: He’s the POTUS. You get guns vs. swords and you get super heroes vs. AI robot hordes. You get a Martian Manhunter tease. You get an Aquaman nod.
Because you guys HAVE to have an Aquaman nod.
*sighs, waits for millions of dollars to roll in*