Long before he appeared in Shazam! as the adult version of Freddy, Adam Brody was tipped for comic book movie stardom. Director George Miller had cast the young star, fresh off his starring role in The O.C., as The Flash his famously called movie Justice League: Mortal.
It’s no secret to fans that the cast of Mortal, including Armie Hammer as Batman, D.J. Cotrona as Superman, Megan Gale as Wonder Woman, had all undergone costume fittings and that sets had even been constructed in Sydney, Australia where the movie was to shoot.
“It doesn’t hurt, but I did realize how fantastic it could have been,” Brody said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “I’ve said this before, but the script was very good. The draft I read was very good. Game-changing? No. Just very solid and very fulfilling. It had the perfect tone, I thought. It captured exactly what you want out of this movie, and everyone was cast fantastically for their roles.“
“Then, the writers’ strike happened so they asked for this ‘kitchen sink’ draft because no one was going to be able to do rewrites for the foreseeable future,” he added. “So, they’re just like, ‘Look, write every idea you have in this script. That’s the one we’ll go off, and then we’ll pare it back.’ So, we got there, and the script was 40 pages longer – and all for the worse. You pulled on too many threads, and it was a fair amount messier.”
Brody goes on to say “I’m sure we would’ve pared it back, and they would’ve figured it out because, again, it was already really good and done, I thought. So, we were working with a little bit more of an unwieldy script.”
He added “Still, it was a very solid script, particularly to begin with, and the cast was aces. I was very excited to work with George Miller, because he’s a legend, but who knew? I didn’t know that he hadn’t even reached his peak. So, seeing Fury Road and seeing what a forward-thinking visionary he still is — it was just beautiful. It’s a beautiful marriage of old-fashioned, streamlined storytelling with modern visuals and world building.”
Brody finished the interview by lamenting on what could have been, “Anyway, I still wouldn’t say it hurt; it just made me realize, ‘Oh, that Justice League movie actually would’ve been f-cking epic.’ It didn’t really even hurt much at the time to be perfectly honest with you; I wasn’t crushed. I very much took it in stride. I also got the part fairly smoothly. So, it didn’t feel like I got this big lottery ticket. I waltzed into it, and I waltzed out of it.”
Oh what could have been!
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