JLA vs. SAG
NY TIMES: A Film’s Superheroes Face Threat of StrikeBy MICHAEL CIEPLY - Published: March 1, 2008
LOS ANGELES — Do five or so of the greatest superheroes in the universe have the power to make a movie these days? Warner Brothers is struggling to find out.
Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are among the biggest icons of DC Comics and are likely to be featured in the upcoming "Justice League" film.
In a Hollywood upended by labor strife — writers just ended one walkout, while actors are rumbling about another — the studio has been trying to begin production on a film based on the long-running DC Comics series “Justice League of America.”
The series unites Superman and Batman with Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern and other extraordinary beings. Thematically, it shares an impulse with “The Three Musketeers”: one for all, all for one, their combined attributes stronger than any one superhero’s.
But nothing has been easy in a season when the usual difficulties of a globe-spanning, effects-laden production with a budget that could approach $200 million have become tangled in uncertainty over pending negotiations with the Screen Actors Guild. Around the industry, executives are wrestling with versions of the same dilemma: Should they go forward with movie projects that might be disrupted by an actors’ strike if shooting does not end by the guild’s June 30 contract deadline? Or should they wait, with the risk that prospective films will fall victim to afterthoughts and lost momentum?
Some of the movies working their way through that bind are Sony Pictures’ sequel to “The Da Vinci Code,” called “Angels & Demons”; Paramount and DreamWorks’ “Transformers 2”; and 20th Century Fox’s “Tooth Fairy.” “Justice League,” if it happens, will give Warner a summer blockbuster either next year or the year after. It could spawn sequels, like the Marvel-based “X-Men” series, which has taken in $1.2 billion at the global box office for 20th Century Fox. Just as important, the film could extend the appeal of Warner Brothers’ two caped mainstays, Superman and Batman, to lesser-known heroes (and inexpensive actors) who might then be featured in blockbusters of their own.
But Warner Brothers’ dreams of a widening stream of profits will come true only if the new film does nothing to detract from a continuing string of Batman movies, the next of which is “The Dark Knight,” set for release in July, or the Superman pictures, another of which is in the works for 2010.
In the past week the unlikely writers of “Justice League” — Kieran and Michele Mulroney, better known for Mr. Mulroney’s acting and his relationship to his brother Dermot Mulroney than for their uncredited work on “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” — were in Australia. They were consulting with the film’s director, George Miller, and revising a script that was being rushed to production when the writers’ strike hit in early November.
Warner Brothers executives declined to comment. And Mr. Miller, whose work has been as varied as “The Road Warrior” and “Babe: Pig in the City,” did not respond to requests for an interview. But several people involved with the film — who requested anonymity because of the studio’s policy of silence about a work in progress — said the revisions were part of a push to revive a project seen as crucial to broadening the studio’s rewards from its subsidiary DC Comics.
Six weeks ago, as the writers’ strike wore on, Warner Brothers, based in Burbank, Calif., halted the plans amid concerns that the screenplay did not quite meet the challenge of introducing a new series without undercutting the old ones. In effect, Batman and Superman would have to exist in two parallel movie universes without making the audience uneasy.
The studio allowed options to lapse on a cast of fresh, and relatively cheap, faces. Hired to step into superhero costumes were Armie Hammer, who has appeared on “Desperate Housewives,” as Batman; D. J. Cotrona, from the television series “Windfall,” as Superman; Adam Brody, of “The OC,” as Flash; the rapper Common as Green Lantern; and the fashion model Megan Gale as Wonder Woman.
Word that revered heroes would be played by relative unknowns raised howls on the Internet. Comic-book fans, a wary lot, “daydreamed about whether people from ‘The OC’ could fly,” in the words of one post on the movie site Joblo.com. Mr. Hammer, the great-grandson of the Occidental Petroleum Company chief executive Armand Hammer, was elsewhere referred to as “Frat-Man.”
But the ensemble had already bonded with Mr. Miller and one another on a trip to Australia, and the cast appears to be intact, even though the actors are no longer under contract.
“We’re having a long engagement, but sometimes a long engagement is worth the wait,” said Joan Hyler, who manages Mr. Hammer, speaking of her client’s standby status. As the writers’ strike ended a little over two weeks ago, some at Warner Brothers were still eager to get “Justice League” in production by mid-April, a start date that would almost certainly make the finished film available for the summer of 2009.
But studio executives now have a leery eye on the actors’ guild. The guild’s leaders will not conclude a survey of members’ concerns until the end of March, and have not yet scheduled negotiations that could provide a hint as to whether companies can expect a strike-free settlement along the lines of those with the writers’ and directors’ unions in the last few weeks. Guild leaders have been under pressure from some of the highest-paid actors, from the union’s longtime ally American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and from its own East Coast wing to get the talks going as quickly as possible.
So “Justice League,” while still moving forward, is not expected to start production this spring; a summer or fall shoot appears more likely, actors willing.
By then, the production may find itself leaving Sydney, where Mr. Miller made “Happy Feet.” According to a report this week in The Sydney Morning Herald, filmmakers and government officials have been embroiled in a debate as to whether the new film, with its enormous budget, would qualify for an incentive that provides a 40 percent rebate to Australian producers. If not, Warner — which has been discussing a financial alliance with Legendary Pictures, its partner on “The Dark Knight” and “Superman Returns” — may move the production to Canada or elsewhere.
The project’s title has also undergone some rethinking over time. According to some involved with the film, the word “America” may drop out, to make the film more palatable abroad, an ever more important consideration for the big studios.
If the movie is delayed, Warner Brothers will not be without heroics, of a sort, next year. Zack Snyder, who directed “300” for the studio, is finishing up his version of “Watchmen.” Set for release in March 2009, the film is based on Alan Moore’s revered graphic-novel series about flawed superheroes who become entangled in the difficulties of real life.
In Burbank, that story is a familiar one of late.
Labels: article, film industry, justice league, justice league of america, ny times, potential strike, sag, screen actors guild, warner brothers
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