Writers working on Flash & Green Lantern 2!
Wed, June 9, 2010 
Warner Bros must have serious faith in what Martin Cambell is doing with next years Green Lantern. They've hired Greg Berlanti, Michael Green and Marc Guggenheim, all of whom worked on the first Lantern screenplay, to write a treatment for the second installment. A sequel being put into development this early into the production of the first film must indicate the studios confidence in the project.
As well as the Lantern sequel they will also be doing a treatment for the Flash. Within the same deal they'll end up writing the screenplay for one of the two projects, though which one has not yet been determined. If I had to guess this probably means that Berlanti will also be directing Flash as previously reported,
The “Flash” film will take inspiration from Johns’ recent work and will feature the Barry Allen incarnation of the character. (In comics lore, several names have wielded the Flash mantle, though Allen, created in 1956, remains by far the most popular.)
Does this mean that the purposed Justice League film is that much closer or that much further away?
On the one hand the fact that they have plans for a Lantern sequel, a Flash film is finally moving forward, Superman and Batman 3 are in development would indicate they're content with solo films for the individual heroes. But on the contrary this could signal their plans to bring the heroes together are closer than we thought. It's certainly possible they'll decide to release individual films first establishing each hero, and then bring them all together for a blockbuster team up much like Marvel's been doing with The Avengers.
What do you think, is this the beginning of a Justice League film? Or has DC chosen to develop each property entirely separate in their own individual franchises?
Reader Comments (7)
If an actual Justice League film ever does happen I really doubt we'll see Batman in it, or at least not the Chris Nolan incarnation. I'm not necessarily a huge fan of the Chris Nolan realism approach to comic book movies. I mean, they're inherently unrealistic no matter which way you slice it, even the more grounded characters like Batman still couldn't really exist. I think it's most important to do one of two things with a comic book adaptation: either just go 100% live action comic book, or make it a film first and foremost. Either way is fine with me, although lately I'm more interested in the latter style.
I'm glad the DC titles are starting to pick up some steam film-wise, but at the same time I have a hard time seeing WB get their shit together based on their track record. Batman may be a thriving franchise, but I think that has a lot more to do with the creative minds driving the film and less the actual character. I hope Green Lantern ends up being a smash, but ultimately I think DC characters tend to be more difficult to adapt to film than the Marvel heroes. I think Joss Whedon said something about the issue once, basically saying that the popular DC heroes were developed much earlier when the creators were trying to make gods, and the Marvel characters came more from a time where the creators were trying to make people.
So, as for my personal feelings: I think the Marvel characters can work fine in crossover/team-up movies. Even though I'm extremely nervous about Avengers even remotely living up to the hype, I'm still extremely excited that it's even happening.
The DC heroes shouldn't exist in a shared film universe. I think those characters work best in their own standalone stories without trying to crossover. Not only do you have the problems with fitting in more "realistic" heroes like Batman into a Superman story, but you also have an issue of scale; the DC heroes are way too powerful in a group, as opposed to the Marvel heroes. It makes more sense for Cap, Iron Man, and Thor to team up to fight whatever earth-shattering threat is looming on the horizon, but who needs Chris Nolan's Batman when you have Superman to fight the aliens?
On a side note, although I'm not a huge fan of David Goyer, I recall him talking about working on a Flash script a while back. I'd be curious to see what he was doing with that.
If Goyers Flash script was anything like Blade 3 or some of the cheese that made it into The Dark Knight (yes there was some cheese), then I don't care to see what he did. But you never know...
I completely agree with you J. They shouldn't have Batman on film with Superman or Green Lantern for that matter simply for the fact that super powered beings like them make Bats irrelevant.
I think its all going to come down to does WB think it will be profitable enough. Not is this what works best continuity or story wise.
I don't think Nolans Batman should appear with Superman, GL, or Flash. But I think we WILL see a JL movie in the not too distant future.
to me this sounds more like they're content witht the solo franchises, but I could be wrong.
Gl must be fucking awesome if they're already planning the sequel. I hope its not as cheesey as I heard it was.
I just realized you said TDK was cheesy MItch! Please tell me where the cheese is in TDK??
Actually I thought quite a bit of the dialogue in TDK was cheesy and even pretty bad in some cases. It's really a testament to the talent of some of the actors like Eckhart and Oldman that they were able to pull off those lines. Spielberg has said before that a lot of good acting is convincingly saying bad dialogue.
I don't think TDK is at all a bad movie, much of it is quite good, but it's far from perfect. Everything is very on the nose and obvious in terms of themes and messages, and I do find some fault in having Joker say things like, "I'm just a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one!" It's a classic case of telling instead of showing--we can tell who the character is via his actions, we don't need him stating exactly who he is via dialogue. This is a problem with a lot of films though--I think the studios are way too nervous that the audience might not "get" something, so they force the creators to make everything as obvious as possible.
J makes a really good point about TDk They did too much telling not enough showing. I mean I liked it too, but don't you dare compare it to Heat or Godfather 2 in terms of quality.