While it doesn’t actually acknowledge the internet rumors about the status and troubles of George Miller’s Justice League, a new Variety article carefully refutes them. The piece is essentially a bit of fluff, announcing that Warner Bros is still 100% behind the movie and the film is still on track for a 2009 release. Delayed release rumors dealt with, the article moves on to other things: it says that George Miller is in pre-production… in Australia, not Canada. And in an attempt to subtly deny the rumors that Superman and Batman are being written out of the film, it mentions Armie Hammer Jr* as the Caped Crusader.
It’s funny to see Warner Bros addressing all of these through a plant in the trades, but it doesn’t fill me with any more hope. I don’t doubt that many of the rumors that have been flying about the film are false, but I do know that some are true, such as the studio’s basic unhappiness with the cast. Everything in that article could change, especially the casting – the piece even mentions that when the movie was put on hiatus in January all of the cast options were allowed to expire. Warner Bros could totally dump Armie Hammer Jr and move forward.
The article also mentions that the script is getting another polish and will be delivered in a couple of weeks. Quint at Aint It Cool is hearing that the current script still retains Batman and Superman, but my understanding is that the current script is the same one they had before the strike. What’ll be telling will be the script that gets handed in next – it’ll have all of the thoughts and arguments of the strike reflected, as well as possibly the complaints of the internet.
In the meantime, this farce remains on. I look forward to eating my words on this one, but I think George Miller is going to take this one right up his chocolate Starro the Conqueror.
*His name is child abuse.