Movies With Butter

Justice League is sort of the superhero equivalent of Terry Gilliam's perpetually derailed Don Quixote flick -- every time it looks like Warner Bros. might be getting close to actually filming it, everything falls apart and the studio has to go back to the drawing board.

It seems to be happening again, according to the latest rumors suggesting that screenwriter Will Beall's script has been rather vehemently rejected by Warners execs. According to "multiple sources," Beall's storyline (which is said to revolve around a cosmic threat posed by the villainous Darkseid) has undergone constant studio tinkering, to no avail; in fact, the screenplay's shortcomings are said to be a major reason for the movie's ongoing lack of a director.

Time will tell whether these reports have any basis in reality, but whatever happens next, it won't be any stranger than Warners pulling the plug on George Miller's Justice League after he'd already signed a cast and started building sets. By the time the studio figures out what they want to do with their DC properties, Marvel's liable to be onto Phase Four of its cinematic initiative -- and laughing all the way to the bank.

It's hard not to wonder if maybe the studio shouldn't just walk away from the idea of a Justice League movie completely -- a sentiment recently expressed by the ever-outspoken Mark Millar, who told Sci-Fi Now that the idea amounts to nothing more than an "excellent way of losing $200 million."

The problem, as Millar sees it, is the characters' age and overall relevancy, as well as the fact that many of their separate powers don't exactly translate well to the screen. ("The actual logistics of each member of the Justice League is disastrous.") While Millar has a vested interest in dumping on DC movies due to his new gig as the steward of Fox's Marvel properties, he may have a point; turning Aquaman and the Flash into relatable film heroes is even trickier than making it work with Superman and Green Lantern -- and we've all seen how those characters can go awry.

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