Some day someone is going to make a really great book or documentary about Justice League: Mortal, the live-action Justice League movie Warner Bros. almost made in the late 2000s. The film was going to be directed by George Miller, the man behind the Mad Max franchise. And if a Justice League movie with action by the guy who did Fury Road doesn’t sound enticing to you, I don’t know what to say.
Miller’s cast included D.J. Cotrona as Superman, Armie Hammer as Batman, Megan Gale as Wonder Woman, Adam Brody as the Flash, Common as Green Lantern, and, in the role of Martian Manhunter, Miller’s frequent star Hugh Keays-Byrne. (You may know Keays-Byrne as Immortan Joe in Fury Road.)
The movie was just about ready to commence production when it was beset by several delays, including a writers’ strike and issues over financing and tax rebates. By the time all of that stuff got cleared up, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight had already opened in 2008 and become one of the biggest and most critically acclaimed superhero movies in history. At that point, DC and Warner Bros. decided it was better to focus on more solo films for each of their tentpole heroes, rather than throw them all into a single movie — or to have two totally different movie Batmen running around at the same time. That was pretty much the end of the line for Justice League: Mortal.
Miller has talked about the film occasionally through the years, and we have gotten to see a coiuple examples of costumes and production designs. But this week we got a really detailed look at what Keays-Byrne could have looked like as Martin Manhunter in the film. As you’ll see it,’s a fairly accurate representation of the character from most of his vintage DC Comics appearances.
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It’s very striking makeup; far more old school DC than what we ultimately saw, very briefly, when the character had a cameo (played by Harry Lennix) in Zack Snyder’s Justice League. (That’s Lennix’s version of Manhunter in the image at the top of this post.)
The degree of polish to the entire look tells you just how far along Justice League: Mortal was when Warner Bros. pulled the plug. That guy looks just about screen ready. It’s just too bad he never actually made it to the screen.
DC Comics That Can’t Become DC Movies
These popular DC Comics titles can never get their own DC movies. (Sorry.)