With all this talk and excitement over things like Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and a Justice League movie finally happening, I thought now would be as good a time as any to take a look back at the Justice League film that never was. It’s time to take a stroll down memory lane, back to 2007 to be exact, and look at what became of that Justice League movie and an odd phantasmal fragment that still exists of it. Now some of you might be wondering why a Justice League film never developed back in ’07, and the reasons for it are a few. One is bad timing. The Writer’s Strike of ’07 happened at the same time the film was about to go into pre-production, putting the film on hold until the next year. After the Strike ended, they wanted to film in Australia, with Sydney Heads doubling for iconic Justice League location, Happy Harbor. Even with the addition of more Australian actors, and an entire production crew of Australian born members, the Government of Australia refused to give Warner Bros. a 40% tax rebate. That being the last straw, they moved the production of Vancouver, where production was again delayed.
At the time, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight had then been released to a staggering reception both critically and financially. The multiple delays and the alluring success of solo hero films then basically killed any interest DC had to make a Justice League film at the time despite having essentially done scripts, casting, and other pre-production work. A Justice League film is in production now as DC continues onto a shared DC film universe, hopefully this time without all the massive setbacks they had endured about a decade ago. However, from out of the past, something related to that canned film still exists in the form of a never finished game.
Double Helix Games, known for the 2013 version of Killer Instinct, was making a game based on the film to coincide with it’s release. In 2012, screenshots and concept art were found of the game for the film from the previous art director and lead level artist’s, Jonathan Gwyn, portfolio. The images soon quickly disappeared from the portfolio, but once something is on the internet, you can’t exactly just delete it and hope everyone forgets it. Due to not wanting at first to scrape the game while still in alpha, the game itself survived slightly longer then the movie it was going to be released with, but it was also canned due to lack of interest. It seems that the alpha build found was made after the film’s cancellation due to some copyrights not referring to the film, in attempt to salvage the game for a non-movie related release.
Recently, Protomedia did a look at the unfinished game, running on the Xbox 360, in attempt to see what a Justice League game would have been like circa 2007. The game would have been a brawler-type, with a lot of punching, dodging, and otherwise heavy combat. It would have had quite a few villains like Mongol, Sinestro, Professor Zoom, Eclipso, and Bizarro . A Playable roster in the Alpha build included Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Superman, The Flash, Martian Manhunter and would had a versus mode between the heroes and villains, including characters like Bane, Cyborg Superman, and others at locations like Coast City, the Flash Museum, or Gotham City. If you want to see more, check the video above.
Source: Youtube via comicbook.com