In just over a years time the Harry Potter franchise will be coming to an end with the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II in July (Part I this November). Over the past 10 years each Harry Potter film has provided Warner Bros. with over $900 million per outing, and thats without taking into account DVD/Blu-ray sales, merchandise etc. They will need to find another event franchise if they want to keep bringing in the $$$.

The only franchise they have at the moment that makes ridiculous amounts of money is Christoper Nolan’s Batman franchise, with The Dark Knight making just over $1 billion worldwide. Batman 3 is currently in development and should do rather well upon its release (2012?), however that is only one film. What tentpole movies will Warner Bros. be filling the summers of 2013 and beyond with?

Superheroes.

According to Collider, who attended a Warner Bros. presentation at the South by Southwest Film Festival, head honcho Alan Horn confirmed that Warner Bros. will be looking to make use of its DC comics library in order to fill the gapping hole left by Harry Potter. This means that over the upcoming year or so we could be hearing developments on movies such as The Flash, Wonder Woman and eventually a Justice League movie. We’ve heard hints of this before as Warner Bros. are planning to emulate Marvel by making solo movies, and then joining everyone up for a big team movie.

I’m not sure a single Wonder Woman or Flash movie will generate a Harry Potter-type box office return, but if they release two superhero movies a year they should end up making similar numbers. It’ll make fanboys happy too.

Warner Bros. may have one of the most successful comic book franchises in Batman, and it may be about to launch a potential new one with Green Lantern, however Marvel are leaps ahead in the movie department. As we already know, they’ve got plans up until 2012 and beyond with The Avengers and possible sequels to Thor, Iron Man and Captain America.

DC, on the other hand, cancelled production Justice League: Mortal (for a number of reasons) and the rights to Superman are currently in a bit of a legal mess. However, things may be about to change. Time Warner announced today that Networks and Film businesses posted record profits this quarter, and a few hints as to where the DC films are headed were dropped in their conference call.

Tuna Amobi – Standard & Poor’s Equity Group

“…on the DC comics initiative it seems like you have a bunch of paddles in the [works] right now can you talk a little bit about the upcoming release strategy there I know you are working on Green Lantern then The Flash, Wonder, Justice League those titles any time frame and how you see the economics of the overall comics really this kind of affect in the studio margins as a whole and any multi platform implication would also be helpful for that area.”

Jeff Bewkes – Chairman & CEO

“If you go to your question on DC, we are going to have a fairly interesting set of announcements and presentations pretty soon like in a matter of weeks I think. About our plans for DC and basically if you look across the title of the whole band of hits whether its Batman, The Dark Knight, Green Lantern coming up, Superman, there have been a huge number of franchised films that have been part of the Warner [tent pole] strategy that’s been the reason for Warner’s unparallel high and consistent earnings advantage over the other studios and DC has already been a part of that and we are now going to outline an even more expansive plan for that in the coming months.”

It will be interesting to hear what they have to say in their big announcement, but it seems they are taking a leaf out of Marvel’s book and are working their way towards a big team movie with the Justice League. The next decade should be a good one for comic book movie lovers!

We have been getting lots of superhero movie news recently. Iron Man 2 and Green Lantern are edging closer to filming, and Marvel are starting to line up the dots for the big Avengers movie in 2012. However, if you look close enough you will realise one thing. It’s a cockfest. After the bad apples such as Catwoman, Elektra and Aeon Flux, studios have steered clear of female driven superhero movies. However now according to IESB the Wonder Woman movie is picking up speed at Warner Bros.

There was a regime change late last year over at Silver Pictures, Andrew Roma is now the man in charge and will be the man spearheading the live action Wonder Woman project along with mega producer Joel Silver.

Sources in the Burbank studios have confirmed there is quite a bit of movement on the WW front. With Green Lantern going into production this year, it looks like Princess Diana may finally get the go ahead from WB.

WB and Silver Pictures are in the early stages but they are eager to get started on the movie. Sources tell IESB that WB is looking for new writers on the project and have been taking pitches the last few weeks.

In the past there have been a number of starts and stops with the Wonder Woman movie. Megan Gale was set to play the character in Justice League: Mortal, however Warner Bros. have put the movie on told for the time being. They have made it clear that they want to follow Marvel’s lead by introducing the characters in solo movies and then joining them together in a movie further down the line. Green Lantern will be Warner Bros. first outing, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they were planning on Wonder Woman to follow him.

Director George Miller confirmed on a Sydney-based morning talk show this morning that he is no longer involved with the Justice League movie in any capacity.

From Dark Horizons:

According to scooper ‘Steve’ he says that Miller indicated that if the project does get going again, he expects that it’ll be recast as “the studios seem to want bigger stars in their superhero movies now.”

Miller must be disappointed, as he tried his hardest to get it made. He attepted to get it filmed in Australia so it could benefit from the same tax benefits as Baz Lurhmans Australia, however that was rejected. There was also some negative buzz surrounding the casting and the use of characters such as Batman and Superman, who already have movies of their own. The fact that this movie has ground to a halt is a good thing.

From what we have heard it looks like DC and Warner Bros intend to follow Marvel’s lead by giving characters their own movies, then joining them up for the group movie. From the looks of things Green Lantern will be first on the list, as production could start sometime next year.

Does anyone remember the days when Justice League: Mortal was actually on the road to being made? Well director George Miller had the cheek to hire an actor to play Batman, who wasn’t Christian Bale. (This was before The Dark Knight was released and dominated the world, so I will let him off slightly). The actor goes by the name of Armie Hammer, and E! Online spoke to him about the (now deceased) movie.

Hammer still hopes the movie will get made, and he told E! that he and his castmates went through several months of intense physical training before production stopped:

“I would spend hours training with actual guns to prepare me for this stuff,” Hammer said. “It was very intense. Our workout regimens were so rigorous that most of us would vomit.”

He added, “We weren’t trying to get ourselves aesthetically good looking. We were trying to get ready for the demands of shooting.”

He also talked about being fitted for the Batman costume, making it sound like they were pretty far along in the preproduction on the movie:

He’s already been fitted for the superhero costume, which he says features functioning equipment, including trademark Batman weapons like spring-loaded titanium Bat-erangs. “I was looking down, and I was thinking, This is the best,” Hammer said off the first time he put on the entire ensemble. “Then I stood up, and they turned me around, and I faced a mirror—there was Batman. But then it hit me like a ton of bricks—it’s not just Batman, it’s me!”

After the success of The Dark Knight I don’t think I could accept anyone else playing Bruce Wayne within the next decade. Thankfully, the Justice League movie won’t be happening anytime soon so we don’t have anything to worry about.

I wonder if Armie saw The Dark Knight?

Despite having a wealth of characters from the DC world, Warner Bros have only managed to make Batman profitable with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Catwoman had the wrong creative team and Superman Returns didn’t meet expectations. More recently they have been trying to follow Marvel’s road by having a team movie, the Justice League. However the main problems were that fans didn’t particularly want it, and neither did Australia.

From Variety:

“We’re not off the notion of a Justice League,” Robinov says. “There’s a massive interest and knowledge in the comicbook industry and it takes time to sort of catch up and understand the characters and the history, where they’ve intersected with each other and what their worlds are. That’s part of the education that we’re going through.”

“These are big, iconic characters,” [Greg] Noveck says. “So when you make them into a movie, you’d better be shooting for a pretty high standard. You’re not always going to reach it, but you have to be shooting for it. We’re going to make a Justice League movie, whether it’s now or 10 years from now. But we’re not going to do it and Warners is not going to do it until we know it’s right.“

This is the best thing that could happen. Batman and Superman already have their franchises (well Batman has anyway), so to cross them over and mix them up would be stupid and it wouldn’t work.

So where do DC and Warner Bros go from here?

“We’re having a lot of internal discussions on it,” Horn says. “We haven’t committed to any change at DC at this point,” adding that both Warners and DC are committed to turning “the properties into viable movie product in an intelligent way so that we introduce them like planes on a runway. They have to be set up the right way and lined up the right way and all take off one at a time and fly safe and fly straight.”

So they have decided to do what Marvel are doing. Marvel have launched Iron Man, rebooted The Incredible Hulk, and will soon be giving us Thor and Captain America. All of these will then join together for a big old bash in The Avengers movie in 2011.

DC’s first solo movie off the blocks will most likely be Green Lantern, which already has a script and is apparently ready to go.

Some thought that the Justice League movie was placed back in development hell after attempts to film in Australia didn’t work out. However, director George Miller recently spoke to the Herald Sun about how good Megan Gale’s audition as Wonder Woman was, and that filming would be taking place next year.

The Aussie Oscar-winner said the glamazon “blitzed her opposition” when she read for the part of Wonder Woman in the sci-fi production.

“She got the job because she blitzed her screen test. I mean, I had no idea she was so good,” Miller said.

“She walked into our office in Sydney and read the part. She has done some Italian movies, but I didn’t think she would be as good as she was.

“But once she read we all looked around at each other and said, ‘Well, there’s no question’.”

Initially slated to be filmed Down Under, Miller conceded production had been moved offshore, with a plan to resume filming next year.

It seems DC want to rival Marvel in the movie department, with Marvel working their way towards an Avengers movie. A few script reviews for the Justice League movie have been rather negative, so maybe George Miller and friends will be able to improve it before filming begins at some point next year.

Yes, you read that right…Hayden Christensen As Superman.

Cinema Blend got word from a rather dominating female who pinned Adam Brody up against a wall and beat him until he revealed information about the Justice League movie to her. Brody is playing The Flash, along with Common as Green Arrow and Megan Gale as Wonder Woman. Adam Brody was in a bar when confronted by the beast, and here is what happened.

“I asked Brody to sign a napkin, and asked what he/they were doing here. They’re in BC to check out locations for their new superhero movie Justice League is Mortal. Brody pointed at Miller and said “George is our director”. He said he’s playing The Flash, Common is playing Green Arrow (or Lantern, one or the other), Armie Hammer (sounded like Arm and Hammer) is Batman, someone from “mad max” is Martian Man-hunter (didn’t catch the name) and Hayden Christensen is Superman. Brody also nodded to the woman to his right and said “she (he said her name but i didnt catch it) is in it too”. Oh, and they had lots of drinks.”

So either Adam Brody is either A) drunk or B) scared or C) Hayden Christensen may actually be putting on the famous cape.

Everyone can understand why Brandon Routh was cast as Superman in Superman Returns, because he looks the part. He has the dark hair, tall figure and muscles. But I can’t see why they would cast some like Hayden Christensen as Superman…oh wait, I can. It’s Hollywood!

One of the main reasons the Justice League movie is not moving forward as much as it would like too after the writers strike, is down to one thing. Australia. Director George Miller has been trying to get the film made in his native Australia so that it can benefit from a 40% refundable tax offset. Many films have been rewarded with help from the Australian Government, such as Baz Luhrmann latest movie. The films leading actors, Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman, are Australian. Baz Luhrmann himself is Australian, as are two of the writers. It was all filmed in Australia and the name of the damn movie is called Australia! It doesn’t get more Australian than that! The problem the Australian Government have with The Justice League is that is it described as ‘an American story that will be performed in American accents.’George Miller and Warner Brothers have tried. They have hired many Australian actors for the lead roles, such as Megan Gale as Wonder Woman. They have also ditched the word ‘America’ from the title, instead calling it Justice League Mortal.

George Miller spoke about the situation to The Sydney Morning Herald.

“A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Australian film industry is being frittered away because of very lazy thinking,” Miller said. “If that’s going to be the final decision, they’re throwing away hundreds of millions of dollars of investment that the rest of the world is competing for and, much more significantly, highly skilled creative jobs.”

Miller said he had “utter creative control” over Justice League and plans to appeal against the decision. “It feels to me like I’m not fighting for this film. I’m fighting for the Australian film industry.”

The Australian-born director said the industry needed movie franchises, even if they were not identifiably Australian, to boost production, improve skills and draw talent back from overseas.

“New Zealand built up their franchises through Hercules and Xena into Lord of the Rings,” he said. “Now they’re doing three Tintin films, two more Hobbit films and Halo. They’ve got work for 15 years in that country.”

The last we heard of the Justice League movie was that Warner Bros had suspended production, for a number of reasons. This was last month, however now the writers strike is over, and things may be moving forward for the movie, or should I say…north.

Justice League was due to be shot at Fox Studios this year until Warner Bros suspended production last month, citing uncertainty over the new incentives. Based on a comic book, it is due to star the Australians Megan Gale, Teresa Palmer and Hugh Keays-Byrne among eight lead roles and employ a huge crew that includes visual effects specialists.

“One of the reasons for doing Justice League in this country is the opportunity to bring back all the people we lost on Happy Feet who went overseas,” Miller said. “We spent four years developing this talent and the cream of them left because they didn’t have another film to go on to …

“The idea is to say come back, start off on Justice League then move onto Happy Feet 2.”

Miller described the movie’s status as “precarious” and said Warner Bros was pushing for it to be shot overseas, with Canada the most likely option.

The movie already has its cast, it just needs to start production. It seems a bit of a strange reason for a movie to get rebooted, simply so the crew can see each other again. I know a lot of people don’t want this movie to happen and were happy when things got closed down last month, but I will save judgement until things start rolling, or we get something from the movie itself.

You can read more about what the The Sydney Morning Herald had to say by clicking here!