Caffeinated Clint
Tax breaks – and our beloved father above – prevented it from coming to fruition, but the script for George Miller’s “Justice League : Mortal” does live on… in paper form.
The superhero tag-team movie, cancelled abruptly a few years back, would’ve featured a cast of relative unknowns in the main parts of Batman (Armie Hammer), Superman (DJ Cotrona), Wonder Woman (Megan Gale) and Martian Manhunter (Hugh Keays-Byrne), but as you’ll see from the now leaked script (UPDATED : It’s now gone), casting would’ve been the least of the film’s problems.
Superhero Movie News, who provided the links to the draft (UPDATED : which has mysteriously disappeared.. much like the site’s staffers, who were last seen waltzing shakingly down a dock in San Francisco, with dark shadows lurking behind them), say of the script :
“First there is Bruce Wayne aka Batman, who is basically the most vital part of the film/script as he is the reason the JL come together in the first place. Clark Kent who in reality is the Kryptonian named Kal-El also known as Superman, the Man of Steel, is the most powerful of the heroes. Along with him is King Arthur of Atlantis, known on the surface world as Aquaman, and no, he’s not at all lame here. Next is the central character of the film whose status as the “lead” is only rivaled by Batman, that is Barry Allen aka The Flash. Flash is the “newbie” to the metahuman community in the sense that he doesn’t know everybody yet, though everyone else knows each other. Moving on we have Princess Diana also known as Wonder Woman, not as kind and motherly as normal however as she acts much more like her New 52 counterpart. The Martian Manhunter aka J’onn J’onzz is a big part of the film as well as his “punishment” is probably the worst of all of the heroes, yet he is always the most levelheaded. Then finally, we have John Stewart aka Green Lantern, who actually seems really cool in this script and is written much like he was on Justice League/Justice League Unlimited”
Overall, the guys liked the script – and only had a few beefs (I have a few more).
“Let me start off by talking a bit about what I think of this script. I thought it was good. I really enjoyed reading it over the period of the last few days and it honestly made me want to watch the film, at least in an animated fashion if not live-action.
”I think the story of Mortal and the lesson that it teaches it very applicable to us here in present/modern day. One of the lessons that this script teaches is that sometimes you just need to trust people. In the script, Batman has created Brother Eye, a Skynet-like program that watches the worlds metahumans and can terminate them at any given time, if need-be. Batman doesn’t trust people with powers as he’s afraid that they could, at any moment, snap and take over the planet (much like Superman in the video game Injustice: Gods Among Us). However, characters like Iris Allen, The Flash, Wally West, and Superman (among others) prove Batman wrong in the sense that maybe trusting people isn’t a bad thing and that you should try to look at the good in people, even powerful people, as opposed to the bad.
Another lesson that this script teaches is how to be a hero. Barry Allen (The Flash) throughout the script/film is willing to sacrifice himself for the people he cares about and the entire world. He continues to be the “straight arrow” character even though he feels like an outsider to the superhero community, even to the point of him sacrificing his life to save the entire planet. This tradition is also shown to continue with the second Flash in the film and Barry’s nephew Wally West as Wally continues to try and be apart of saving the world and even was willing to help Barry save the planet (by running into the Speed Force) until Barry told him “no”.
”Finally, I think Mortal is a social commentary on helping others. The whole point of Maxwell Lord (I can only in-vision the guy who played him on Smallville now…) hijacking Brother Eye, the OMACs, and trying to take out the planet was because nobody helped him and people like him when someone should have. I’m not justifying Lord’s actions here mind you, but I am saying that it’s because no one helped that he went crazy in the first place (don’t worry, Ted Kord wasn’t shot and killed in this film). But I would go even further in how this film is a social commentary, I would even go so far as to say that villains are everywhere! In films like The Avengers, Thor, Green Lantern, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Man of Steel, and others show that the villain is an alien, and even the villains in Iron Man, The Dark Knight, and Captain America: The First Avenger show villains that are unique and aren’t “normal” or “ordinary” people. However, Justice League: Mortal’s villains are just ordinary people! An OMAC is just an ordinary person, Talia is just an ordinary person, even Maxwell Lord (telepathy or not) is an ordinary person, and yet ordinary people are what take down the Justice League.
”I don’t want anyone to think that I am one of those people who just sees bad in others and looks at everyone like they’re a villain, clearly one of the messages of this movie is to see good and be a hero (see above) and I myself choose to see the good in people over the bad (thank you Smallville). Based on that there’s also another message in this script/film. While a message is definitely that a bad guy doesn’t have to be unique, they can be ordinary, the counter-message to that is that a HERO can be anyone, even an ordinary person (that’s a message seen in The Dark Knight Rises as well). I mean, if you read the script, Barry Allen is an ordinary person. He has a wife, he has a nephew, he has a normal and ordinary life, but he’s been gifted with super-speed that allows him to make a difference. Maxwell Lord sees the League as “gods”, but Barry only sees himself as a normal guy trying to do the right thing. That’s the real message of Justice League: Mortal above any other message in the film! This is why Barry Allen is my favorite Flash.”
I agree with the writer that the strength of the script lies in ‘The Flash’ – as well as the villain Max Lord (Jay Baruchel was attached to play the part) – and it’s a pity this couldn’t have been retooled to simply be a ‘Flash’ script. Superman is hardly in the movie, Batman isn’t the Batman he wanna see, and a few others are merely ‘hello and bye’ types, but overall, it would’ve made for a decent solo outing for Baz Allen.
Google yourself a copy of the script.
