World Building: Man of Steel, Joseph Gordon-Levitt May Be Involved In Justice League Movie

Update, 7 p.m.: According to Sydney Bucksbaum at Hollywood.com, Gordon-Levitt’s representatives have “refuted the rumor entirely.” Of course, one time I had representatives “refute” the “rumor” that I had “run over” an “elderly person” while I was “hammered.” At least they did until my representatives negotiated a final “plea agreement.” So for now, I guess this will remain, as it did this morning, a cool-sounding rumor.

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Ever since Marvel Studios’ Avengers movie made about a bazillion dollars earlier this year, it was all but a foregone conclusion that Warner Bros. would be coming out with a Justice League movie. You know, unless for some reason they hate money. Watching a movie about a superhero team make beaucoup delores, to the point it has only been beaten by blue people fucking or young lovers freezing to death in the frigid North Atlantic (again: blue people fucking. Pow! Thank you folks, I’ll be here all week! I work here!), and then leaving your own superhero property on the table, would be less a poor management decision than terminal self-destructive whiskey insanity.

The Justice League movie has quietly been in pre-production since Warner Bros. won the latest battle for the rights to Superman against the estate of Superman creator Joe Shuster about a month ago, but without a lot of detail as to how they were gonna proceed. Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy had ended, with both Nolan and Batman actor Christian Bale saying pretty strongly that they wouldn’t be involved in anything else Batman-related. Zack Snyder was deep into production on Superman movie Man of Steel, but he’d said back in March of last year that Man of Steel wouldn’t be part of any Justice League movie. So all initial indications were that Warner Bros. was planning pull a reverse of Marvel Studios, and just make a Justice League movie, spinning individual heroes’ movies off of that.

But that was then, and $623,279,547 Avengers movie dollars ago. Today, it looks like there might be some moves to make Justice League tie not only into Man of Steel… but into Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy.

Some Will Win, Some Will Lose: Superman Ownership Ruling Opens Door To Justice League Movie

The other day we linked to the at-the-time breaking story that a Federal Judge in California had ruled that, in a nutshell, DC Comics does not owe any ownership of the character Superman to the estate of the character’s co-creator Joe Shuster, who before the decision looked to be able to claim half the character’s copyright in October, 2013, giving DC and parent company Warner Bros. the right to exploit the character in any way they see fit (cue synth-heavy porno music).

The short version of the story is that, between DC’s1975 lump-sum and pension payments to Shuster and co-creator Jerry Siegel, combined with a separate 1992 settlement DC made with Shuster’s sister for another lump sum and a $25,000 annual pension (EDITOR’S NOTE: between issues, trades and convention travel, I about that much per year on my comic book habit), the judge ruled that the creators’ estates have gotten all that they are owed from DC Comics. Proving once again that, the next time you have what you think is a million-dollar idea, you should find a lawyer who thinks you should hold out for something closer to that million before you sign anything… and if you’ve already signed, you should listen very carefully to the other guys’ lawyer to hear if they say anything along the lines of “fuck off money.”

Shuster’s estate will probably appeal – it’s not like there’s a lucrative future in throwing up their hands and going after that sweet, sweet Funnyman cash – but this ruling has a couple of immediate circumstances, even beyond the effect of making Diane Nelson cackle with relief…

The first being that it greases the skids for Warner Bros. to start serious work on a Justice League movie. Which is now expected in the summer of 2015.