Juno director Jason Reitman was also on the Howard Stern Show today and revealed that he turned down an offer to direct Justice League of America for Warner Bros. Howard’s first question was “How’s the script?”
“Good, FINE… You know, I mean. I had to sign something, they send me the script and it comes on this spy paper which cant be xeroxed,” revealed Jason Reitman. “They have a time when I have to have the script back to them and the script is fine and I could be spending…” Jason later continued: “What am I going to do with Justice League of America? So Basically I’ll make a movie that is not as good as X-Men, then I’ll be the guy who made a movie not as good as X-Men. Where just like you talking about, going to smaller stations, if I make another small movie, and it’s really good, it performs well…” “Right now I’m thought of as a particular type of director. I’ve got an oscar nomination. I’ve made two indie films that play film festivals that are considered thoughtful. I want to stay in that world, I like making those type of films.”
Reitman later let it slip that the budget for Justice League would have been $150 million.
Discuss: Would You have wanted to see a Jason Reitman directed Justice League movie? If not, who would be your dream director?
April 10th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Good decision, it wouldn’t be his kind of movie and although he’s a great director, I don’t think he could pull it off the way an established action director could.
April 10th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Ridley Scott
April 10th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Only 150 million? My dream JLA director: Brad Bird. Anyway, was he recently asked or was he asked before they decided to go with Miller?
April 10th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Brad Bird?
NO.
April 10th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Just leave this fucking movie alone. It’s a god damn sign that no one wants to do it, or should be done. It’s too epic of a film. Even more so than X-Men.
And Miller keeps trying to stoke the fires. Go back to making penguin movies or something George.
April 10th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Jason Reitman would have turned it into The Breakfast/Justice club.
TBH…that would actually be pretty cool.
” my super power is….. I can make spaghetti.”
April 10th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
What an odd choice. Congrats to Reitman for knowing who he is. I respect that.
….and can they just kill this movie anyway? Too many superheroes spoil the movie soup. No good can come out of that.
April 10th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
No one could direct this and make it work the way Warner Bros. wants it to…Anyone read the Kingdom Come graphic novel?
April 10th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
they should just drop the movie already
i mean you need a director who can take on many characters can dazzle the fans with some good action and effects and you want someone with some type of experience
if i had to say
gore verbaniski the director of all the pirates movies
April 10th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
he was really cool in that interview. i think for me, my problem with JLA has always been the cast and the dreadful script we keep hearing pieces of. i’d be fine with Miller, but that cast/script is a trainwreck no matter who’s directing.
i think david fincher or james cameron could’ve made JLA really kick ass. (with a new script & cast of course)
kingdom come rocks, but i really don’t dig alex ross’ style - i know i am all alone on that one.
April 10th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Seth,
Kingdom Come was the first graphic novel to make me “like” the JLA and the mythos behind these characters. I loved how they portrayed the original JLA and Superman’s view of the world at a much later, and older age.
The whole symbolic “black” background behind the “S” was one of my favorite archs for a character in that universe. And I was never much of a Superman fan to begin with. But they did a great job with him in that.
April 10th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
That’s… interesting.
He didn’t say how the screenplay was other than “fine.”
April 11th, 2008 at 12:17 am
nope orange cinema you’re not the only one who doesn’t care for Alex Ross’s style…………it reminds me too much of old Christian Bible stories that they would stuff down your throat in sunday school (the art that is).
Aside from that, I must say I really respect a Director who knows what type of Director they want to be, and not get lured into a disaster just for the money.
They are really starting to kill the “superhero” based movies at the moment. I mean c’mon there has actually only been like two franchises that have been worth while Spiderman I II and III, and Nolans Batman. Where everything else has only been mediocre. DC/WB should just give it a rest and sit it out, just like MARVEL did during the 80’s and 90’s. Especially if they are going to poop out stuff like Superman Returns.
April 11th, 2008 at 2:34 am
I know he’s doing Batman already but my vote is Chris Nolan. So it’s a little too easy but I don’t know I trust comic book movies to anyone else.
April 11th, 2008 at 5:34 am
Bryan Singer did a great job with the X-Men movies….not so with Superman Returns though…
April 11th, 2008 at 8:22 am
Reitman hasn’t shown that he has the power to orchestrate such a large, epic film. Sure, he can spill little indie films into magic, but he hasn’t shown anything past that. His scope as a director is very small, he needs to do something a little bigger. I have a feeling him and Diablo Cody will be working together for a while…
My dream dream director for this would be PT Anderson. Yea, weird choice. But I think he’d do a fantastic job, let it be sprawling [like it should be], and he’d add a fresh approach to the superhero movie.
Another choice would be James Cameron, but we’d have to wait until 2030 to see it completed with him.
I would LOVE to see a JLA film, as long as the cast is first rate [I'm fine with unknowns, I would prefer unknowns who really play the character as opposed to random A-listers who are cast to boost the box office take]. It also needs a new script, or at least a massive rewrite [notice how Reitman only calls it "fine"].
On the Kingdom Come note, the story is actually not all that great. I love the graphic novel, but I felt somewhat disappointed by the story arc, I felt it was missing something. I do love the epilogue, and Alex Ross is a god in my mind, his treatment of the characters was fantastic, especially with Superman. I’m a huge Batman fan, so maybe I just wanted more of him in it haha.
April 11th, 2008 at 9:13 am
Only if Diablo Cody rewrote the whole movie blindfolded.
April 11th, 2008 at 10:56 am
the perfect guy for this project would be chris nolan or peter jackson , this movie needs the best of the best and they really need to develop the other franchises first (flash /green lantern) and use the same actors (bale / routh) , this movie could be greater than the star wars mythos
April 11th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
I totally agree with Andres From Colombia, Chris Nolan, BY FAR the best director to handle a comic book series, although he’s my fav director right now, I’m not sure how he would do Justice League, same goes for Peter Jackson. Maybe Lucas, Spielberg, maaaaybe Michael Bay, but I lost a lot of hope in him after Transformers, granted he directed beautifully with a horrible script, but he still chose to do it after all. Justice League is going to be one of the most EPIC movies we’ve seen in years, and who was saying X-MEN was epic??? NOT! It’s good, but it’s not epic, come on guys! I still strongly think that DC/Warner Bros should make a lot more of solo hero movies BEFORE making a JLA movie; the movie’ll do a LOT better in all aspects!
April 11th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Nobody should do this movie, it has be cancelled so many times and so many people had turned it down it is a sign from God, DON’T DO IT!!!
April 11th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
I just got finished watching Juno and I have to say that Jason Reitman is a great director. Passing on JLA was a good move. The way the production is going (Australia is the prime choice to shoot the movie but they’re looking for more $$), it doesn’t look like it will be made anytime soon. Why waste possibly 2+ years on a movie that will be crappy to begin with?
April 12th, 2008 at 3:42 am
Bryan Singer would be my choice for this movie. In my opinion he is one of the few in Hollywood that “gets it” when it comes to these kind of movies.
April 12th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Plain and simple. The studios need to back the fuck off. Almost every comic movie sucks for a reason. It is very telling that this movie would “not be as good†as x-men. Like that was a fucking gem. LOL …I laugh every time my kids are watching the animated justice league. The writers are 1000% better than any of the hack screen writers they have butchering comic book adaptations.
April 12th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
ONE NAME GUYS. BRUCE TIMM. there is no better chioce for a diector.
April 14th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
The Justice League movie should not be done until the characters individual films are created. WB is pushing the film to cash in, period.
If Wb were intelligent they would find a way to put Tom Welling in a red cape for a two movie deal, and then do a “Worlds Finest.”
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:51 pm
I’d like to see Chris Nolan, David Goyer and Bryan Singer work on this as Birector, Writer and Producer respectively.