One of the odder, and more frustrating aspects, of DC Entertainment’s live action film plans is how disjointed it all feels. Batman Begins kicked off an unprecedented trilogy of success, both critical and commercial, but was consistently revealed to be a sperate entity from any future DC films. Even after Christopher Nolan, director of the Batman trilogy, was brought in to produce Man of Steel, connections were consistently denied.
It got so confusing that, up through last week, people were speculating that 2015’s Justice League would feature a new Batman and, most confusingly, a new Superman, even if Man of Steel was successful and would spawn sequels.
That all began to change over the weekend.
Zack Snyder, director of Man of Steel, suddenly got a lot more coy on the subject of film connectivity. IGN did a great round up of this material yesterday, reporting:
When asked directly about Man of Steel‘s connection to Justice League, Snyder recently told the New York Post (via Screen Rant), “I don’t know how Justice League is going to be handled. Honestly, I don’t… But Man of Steel exists, and Superman is in it. I don’t know how you’d move forward without acknowledging that.”
When pressed for more info, the director continued, “Um, how can I answer that?… I can’t really say anything to that, because that’s a big spoiler. I will say, yeah, they trust me to keep them on course.”
So, if Snyder is keeping the character on course to appear in Justice League, then we can assume that Henry Cavill, star of Man of Steel, is most likely going to reprise the role in Justice League. As news of this was seeping through the dense series of wires and tubes that is the internet, Hit Fix ran a story that upped the stakes again.
According to a source that spoke to Hit Fix, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has signed on to play Batman in Justice League, as well as another Nolan-verse character making an appearance in Justice League and, possibly, Man of Steel. If you haven’t yet seen The Dark Knight Rises, you may want to stop reading right here, because major spoilers for the film will be discussed.
At the end of The Dark Knight Rises, Bruce Wayne essentially fakes his own death, leaving Gotham to live abroad free of the Batman mantle. But before he leaves, he entrusts the Bat cave and, seemingly the cowl, to John Blake, a Gotham police officer who Wayne thought could be an even greater hero than he was. The movie ends with the lingering question of whether or not Blake would take up the cowl and fight crime as Batman.
Hit Fix seems to think that is exactly what happens, and crafts a pretty solid guess as to how this will all be revealed, perhaps, during Man of Steel.
So let’s take what we know and speculate a little bit. How crazy do you think fans would go if Superman were to take to the skies at the end of Man Of Steel, finally ready to fully accept his role as mankind’s most powerful protector, only to have the closing credits interrupted when something catches his attention and he swoops down out of that sky, landing on a rooftop where Jim Gordon stands next to the Bat-Signal, interrupting just as the new Batman arrives for a chat about Gotham’s latest problem?
Pretty crazy, I’d wager.
Gordon-Levitt has not denied that he would play the part again, even speaking during the press junket for Lincoln about the desire to play the character if the script was right.
If this rumor turns out to be true, and they already have the actors playing Batman and Superman locked into Justice League, the path forward looks a lot clearer, and the two biggest potential problems with the film seem to be neutralized. Whether or not Ryan Reynolds would reprise his role as Hal Jordan in the film has not been revealed, but simply having John Stewart, Kyle Rayner or Guy Gardner as the Green Lantern on the team is a pretty easy solution if Reynolds chooses not to return.
Stay tuned for more news as it hits, and let us know in the comments if this is good or bad news for Justice League.
