#dc comics;

Variety is reporting that Warner Bros. has a screenwriter on board for a Justice League movie. Tapped is Will Beall who in addition to have been executive story editor on the tV show Castle, is the writer of the upcomingGangster Squad movie as well as the upcoming remakes of Lethal Weaponand Logans Run. That’s a lot of unreleased films, and frankly very few credits, so I assume his pitch must have been good.

Last year when Jeff Robinov was named head of Warner Bros. film division he set getting a Justice League movie made by 2013 as one of his goals and said the a writer had been hired. If true, it mean Beall has been working on his script for over a year. Robinov also said that scripts were being written for The Flash and Wonder Woman. (The reference to a Wonder Woman film was interesting given Robinov had previously been reported as stating that Warner Bros. would no longer make female led films. But I digress.) Variety also reports that Michael Goldenberg, who worked on Green Lantern, is reportedly writing a Wonder Woman movie. I'll do a separate post about that.

Warner Bros. has been trying to get a Justice League movie made for over decade. George Miller came closest in 2007-2008 with casting underway for for a dark and violent take on the team, but Warner Bros. cancelled the project before filming began.

Instead the company began the successful Batman Trilogy by Christopher Nolan which is now coming to an end. It also made a failed attempted to reboot the Superman franchise. It is taking a mulligan on that with Man of Steel.

So why is this news being reported now? I can think of one billions reasons which is also the number of dollars the Avengers movie has grossed world wide. Marvel’s strategy of making individual films focusing on Thor and Captain America and a team movie featuring those characters and characters from their successful Iron Man series paid off.

DC and Warner Bros. on the other hand saw a huge disaster with their Green Lantern film. Beyond final chapter of The Dark Knight Rises, they don’t have another film scheduled until Man of Steel next year. Even if they do move forward on the Justice League movie to have the same level of franchise success as Marvel they have a lot of work to do. Does Clavill get signed for this movie or do they wait to see how Man of Steel performs (Marvel rolled the dice by casting Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth in The Avengers before their individual movies were released). How fast can the Batman franchise, which I assume would have to coordinate with a Justice League movie, be put in motion? 

So while the naming of an actual writer is a good sign, there many other hurdles to overcome before we’ll see a film. Let’s remember that Warner Bros. had Avengers writer Joss Whedon on board for writing a Wonder Woman film for a few years and nothing resulted.

And finally there’s the risk of the writer. What will happen to development of a Justice League movie if Gangster Squad isn’t successful at the box office in the fall?

I’ll feel that a Justice League movie is really going to happen when a director comes on board.