Justice League Mortal Star Calls the Film a "Fever Dream"

While these days all talk of Justice League surrounds the Zack Snyder version of the film, there was a time where a very different Justice League was headed to theaters. That would be George Miller's Justice League: Mortal, which was eventually cancelled but not before a full cast was put together and development started. Part of that cast was actor Jay Baruchel, who was cast as DC villain Maxwell Lord well before Pedro Pascal would bring the villain to the big screen in Wonder Woman 1984. In a new interview with Variety about his film Random Acts of Violence, Baruchel was asked about his version of the character compared to the newest one, and he shared a few details on what was planned, calling the whole project a "fever dream".

"I haven't seen it. I know the character's in it, so I can't speak to what they did versus what we were going to do," Baruchel said. "I can speak to the crazy f****** fever dream that would have been 'Justice League: Mortal' by George Miller. I just spent ten minutes talking s*** about acting, but my time in Australia with him is everything I adore about the craft. He treated it like a play. We workshopped it. We had a full-on dramaturg on set and did super, super earnest Meisner technique s*** and ripped apart and unpacked the script just for the sake of itself. It was art for art's sake."

"George is one of the most important filmmakers of all time and part of the reason I wanted to be a director was 'Road Warrior.' I have no idea what they did in the new one, but in ours we had psychokinesis and blood coming out of my tear ducts and a whole bunch of crazy, cool shit that would have been a blast to do. We were painting with pretty vivid operatic colors."

The Justice League Mortal cast featured Armie Hammer playing Batman, Megan Gale as Woman Woman, Adam Brody as The Flash, Common as Green Lantern, Santiago Cabrera as Aquaman, and Hugh Keays-Byrne as Martian Manhunter in addition to Baruchel as Lord. It was set to start filming in 2008 but was then canceled, though storyboards, concept art, costumes, and stories like this from the cast have given us an idea of what it would've been like if it actually had hit the big screen.

What do you think of Mortal's version of Max Lord? Let us know in the comments!