No doubt inspired by Marvel and their assembling Avengers Warner Brothers have quietly been putting together their own mass superhero film by hiring Will Beall to write Justice League. Justice League are the DC Comics version of The Avengers and include the like of Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman. This is all very well and good but it was something else in Variety’s article about this news that caught my eye; a new screenwriter has been hired to write a Wonder Woman film.
The screenwriter in question is Michael Goldenberg a man whose major credits include Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and the recent Green Lantern film, on which he was one of seven scribes. I will now blindly judge Goldenberg on Green Lantern‘s performance as it serves as his sole comic book adaptation experience.
Scoring just 27% positive reviews over at Rotten Tomatoes and only just managing to earn back its production budget during its cinematic release Green Lantern was a critical and financial flop. Is this really the right man to put together a major film for Warner Brothers?
Five years ago Warner Brothers abandoned another Wonder Woman project, a project which had a relatively unknown writer-director on board. The studio and screenwriter were trying to make two different films and so in February 2007 they parted ways amicably. The writer in question was Joss Whedon, the man who recently wrote and directed Marvel’s The Avengers which was the opposite of Green Lantern in both its financial and critical success. Warner Brothers already have a script from Hollywood’s hottest superhero writer for a Wonder Woman film so why are they not rushing it into production?
I’m sure they have their reasons, presumably it doesn’t tie into their plans for the Justice League film, and if Whedon had been judged as harshly as I just judged Goldenberg he wouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near the Avengers set – his first film hardly set the box office on fire. I’m just intrigued as to see what Joss Whedon’s Wonder Woman would look like.
Crap, I still need to see The Avengers…
Mild Concern 