Justice League officially assembling

Warner Bros’ attempt to turn its Justice League Of America comics – a hero-heavy mash-up of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and The Flash among others – is one of those projects that’s been rolling through the rumour wasteland for ages, with zero official confirmation.

But now the studio has shown its hand: it is indeed preparing a project that will feature a multi-comic book character team with George Miller at the helm. Executives are apparently doing jubilant cartwheels over a script written by Kieran and Michele Mulroney.

Here’s the hitch. Warners is already seeing massive success from Christopher Nolan’s Batman reboot and, er, some success from Bryan Singer’s Superman. We don’t know what Singer thinks about his character being nabbed for Justice League (and chances are Brandon Routh wouldn’t get to pull on the tights for it), but we do know Nolan isn’t happy with the idea and would prefer that the studio waits until he’s rolled out everything he has to say on the caped crusader. Oh, and Christian Bale isn’t really interested in Batman without Nolan.

So can the studio make it fly? Well, it’s in charge of the purse strings and the rights, so it can certainly do what it likes. And it really does need a superhero movie ready for 2009, to tide it over across the possible strike next year, and with Bryan Singer so busy on Valkyrie, that might not be Superman Returns Again (or whatever it ends up being called). “They’re working very hard to get it to happen,” a source “close to the project” blabbed to Variety. “But there are so many characters, it’s complicated.” And that’s another reason the executives want to proceed - it could help jumpstart the flagging fortunes of Wonder Woman and The Flash franchises.

Our opinion? It’ll happen – but not without controversy and not without problems. Stay tuned for casting news…