September
20 George Miller to helm 'Justice League' pic

It's official: director George Miller is onboard WB's "Justice League" pic .

The choice of Miller should make fans happy. His last pic, "Happy Feet," was a huge commercial success and won the best animated feature Oscar last year. More importantly, the Aussie helmer directed the iconic "Mad Max," its even more popular sequel, "The Road Warrior," and the third installment, "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome." (I'm waiting for a site to bring up the idea of casting Mel Gibson as Hal Jordan/Green Lantern — given that both the character and the actor eventually had their meltdown moments, it seems very apropos.)

But while WB would love to get this done pre-strike and secure a 2009 tentpole, there's a lot of problems to overcome, not the least of which is casting. With "The Dark Knight" due next summer and a Bryan Singer-helmed sequel to "Superman Returns" also in the works, there is the question of who would play Batman and Superman in a JL pic. Christian Bale and director Chris Nolan seem less than enthused about a competing version of Batman, though fans have already been happily pondering "Smallville's" Tom Welling stepping into the role played by Brandon Routh in "Returns." There still seems to be some question over whether the studio will delay "JL" in favor of Singer and Nolan's respective series.

There's also a huge amount work that has to be done when you're going to bring as many iconic characters to the screen for the first time as this one. Jordan's GL may not appear in this film, but Wonder Woman, Aquaman and The Flash are. Designing costumes and casting for any one of those characters is hard enough — and we're not even onto the idea of who the villain would be. The scope of the pic may be too large to really rush into production before the looming strikes.

On the plus side is the support the studio seems to be showing for the script by Keiron and Michele Mulroney, only about six or so months after they were brought onto the project.