'Justice League: Mortal' Would Have Featured An Epic Superhero Fight

Ah yes, George Miller’s long lost “Justice League Mortal.” We can only imagine what it would have been like to see the visionary creator of “Mad Max: Fury Road” take on a modern-day superhero movie. The film was pretty much greenlit for production in 2007, with a 2009 release date set, and then the writers strike happened which consequently halted the movie to a dead-stop. The legend of what Miller’s film could have been will always linger in our heads. It’s a legendary Hollywood “what if.”

READ MORE: The 25 Greatest Movies Never Made

We relish in hearing about anything having to do with Miller’s prep work for “Justice League Mortal” pre-production, especially after the genius, once-in-a-lifetime experience he gave us with the aforementioned ‘Mad Max’ film. That movie’s success must have had the WB kicking themselves over letting Miller go. Over the years production details, such as photos and storyboards, have leaked.  We know the film would have starred D.J. Cotrona as Superman, Armie Hammer as Batman, Megan Gale as Wonder Woman, Adam Brody as The Flash and Common, yes the rapper, as The Green Lantern.

READ MORE: Documentary About George Miller’s Abandoned ‘Justice League Mortal’ In The Works

Jay Baruchel, who would have played the villain Maxwell Lord, has been doing the media circuits promoting his directorial debut “Goon: The Last Enforcer.” Speaking on Josh Horowitz’ Happy Sad Confused podcast, Baruchel revealed what was supposed to be an key scene in Mortal’s screenplay: A fight between Superman and Wonder Woman.

READ MORE: Leaked Script For George Miller’s Canceled ‘Justice League’.

“There’s a scene where Maxwell Lord brainwashes Clark and all of a sudden this guy’s got Superman as a weapon,” Baruchel explained. “But the process for me to do it, and my pitch was and Miller loved, I start bleeding out of every fucking orifice because it takes that much effort to get me into a Kryptonian brain. And then I turn him into Red-Eye Superman, and there’s this big-ass fight between him and Wonder Woman where he breaks her fucking wrists and shit. And then I die halfway through the movie and my consciousness is uploaded to a fucking mainframe and I’m a evil computer.”

Baruchel’s admittal that the film was pretty deep in pre-production hits where it hurts:

“They had all the costumes. They had all the pre-viz, they had all of the production design figured out, so they would walk us through command center where they had everything. They had all of the art up. The aesthetic choices they were making and the story and character choices they were making were so ballsy, and we won’t ever see it.”

He also hinted at what the visual palette would have looked like in Miller’s film: “Imagine Miller doing [Zack] Snyder…It was very tableau and there were paintings. What the characters were doing had such teeth to it.” Want more? How about Wonder Woman’s intro in the film, which veers far away from Patty Jenkins‘ vision from this past summer:

“The opening scene on Themiscyria, it’s her on top of a steed, and she stood about half a kilometer away from a minotaur, minotaur’s got a battle axe in its hand, and she just rushes him—all the Amazons are there cheering her on—she just beheads him, gets off her steed, and holds up its head, doesn’t say a goddamn thing, and I’m like, ‘That’s the Wonder Woman I want to see!’”

Sounds a little like Terry Gilliam‘s “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote,” minus the happy ending (he finally shot it and it’s set for release in 2018). In the aftermath, Gilliam’s turbulent original production spawned the making-of documentary, “Lost in La Mancha.” Perhaps it’s no surprise to learn that a documentary on the making of “Justice League Mortal” is currently in the works, and we’re certain it will be just as tragic and painful a watch, given that a happy ending on this one now feels impossibly out of reach.

The 25 Greatest Movies Never Made