The superhero film genre has grown to be one of the largest tentpoles in cinema for close to a decade thanks to Marvel and DC constantly pushing the envelope and audience’s expectations. In fact, it’s so rare for a large production to face cancellation due to how much money is on the table. That’s why Disney and Marvel ultimately chose to replace Edgar Wright as the director of Ant-Man instead of outright canceling the production despite Wright’s long-term involvement with the film that predates the current Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yet, it happens, and for various reasons, too.
There’s a certain level of intrigue that follows a film’s cancellation that warrants a bit more digging, resulting in documentaries like Jodorowsky’s Dune and the Tim Burton/Nicolas Cage Superman film, The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened? Back in 2009 during the height of Christopher Nolan’s successful The Dark Knight Trilogy, Mad Max creator George Miller was attached to direct a Justice League film that would have starred Armie Hammer (The Social Network) as Batman, Adam Brody (The O.C.) as The Flash, and Common as Green Lantern, amongst others. Pre-production went as far as rehearsals before it was abruptly cancelled by Warner Bros. and DC.
With Miller finding revitalized success with Mad Max: Fury Road and DC taking another stab at a Justice League film, it only makes sense for an official (or officially unofficial) look at what went wrong. Enter director Ryan Unicomb. Much like the aforementioned documentaries, Unicomb is taking a look at what went wrong with Miller’s take on the Justice League in a documentary entitled Miller’s Justice League Mortal. With the hindsight of Mad Max: Fury Road‘s success, it would be interesting to see how Justice League Mortal‘s cancellation paved the way for Miller to return to the world of Mad Max and how the cancelled Justice League film compares to the information we have for the upcoming JL film.
There’s currently no scheduled release date for Miller’s Justice League Mortal.
[via Newsarama]