Fans first saw the biggest heroes from DC Comics come together on screen in 2017’s Justice League, though Mad Max director George Miller nearly delivered audiences Justice League: Mortal in 2007, with star of that scrapped project Adam Brody admitting that project’s cancellation caused disappointment but it doesn’t maintain a major emotional impact on him. The actor was set to play The Flash in the team-up. The film was set to begin shooting in Australia in December of 2007 but, with the studio feeling the script needed rewrites and a writers’ strike going on at the time, those rewrites never took place as the cast’s contracts lapsed, leading towards the project ultimately being scrapped entirely.
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“It’s definitely not a wound,” Brody shared with The Hollywood Reporter. “It doesn’t hurt, but I did realize how fantastic it could’ve been. I’ve said this before, but the script was very good. The draft I read was very good. Game-changing? No. Just very solid and very fulfilling. It had the perfect tone, I thought. It captured exactly what you want out of this movie, and everyone was cast fantastically for their roles.”
Notes from the studio at the time seemingly hurt the script more than it helped, which was only one step on the way to its cancellation.
“The writers’ strike happened so they asked for this ‘kitchen sink’ draft because no one was going to be able to do rewrites for the foreseeable future,” Brody pointed out. “So, they’re just like, ‘Look, write every idea you have in this script. That’s the one we’ll go off, and then we’ll pare it back.’ So, we got there, and the script was 30 to 40 pages longer — and all for the worse. You pulled on too many threads, and it was a fair amount messier. I’m sure we would’ve pared it back, and they would’ve figured it out because, again, it was already really good and done, I thought.”
He continued, “We were working with a little bit more of an unwieldy script. Still, it was a very solid script, particularly to begin with, and the cast was aces. I was very excited to work with George Miller, because he’s a legend, but who knew? I didn’t know that he hadn’t even reached his peak. So, seeing [Mad Max:] Fury Road and seeing what a forward-thinking visionary he still is — it was just beautiful. It’s a beautiful marriage of old-fashioned, streamlined storytelling with modern visuals and world building.”
In addition to Brody, the film was set to star Armie Hammer, D.J. Cotrona, Megan Gale, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Teresa Palmer, Zoe Kazan, Santiago Cabrera, Jay Baruchel, Common, and Anton Yelchin. Brody and Cotrona ultimately starred together in Shazam!. Miller went on to deliver audiences Mad Max: Fury Road in 2015, which earned more Academy Awards nominations than any other movie that year.
“I still wouldn’t say it hurt; it just made me realize, ‘Oh, that Justice League movie actually would’ve been fucking epic,’” Brody pointed out. “It didn’t really even hurt much at the time to be perfectly honest with you; I wasn’t crushed. I very much took it in stride. I also got the part fairly smoothly. So, it didn’t feel like I got this big lottery ticket. I waltzed into it, and I waltzed out of it.”
Shazam! is out now on home video. Stay tuned for details on the future of the Shazam! series.
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