Justice League blockbuster (part 1) - concept outline

Purpose: To launch JUSTICE LEAGUE as a credible movie franchise to rival the success of Marvel's Avengers without repeating "more of the same thing"
Target Audience: Casual action movie audience + hardcore comic book fans

What to keep the same
- intense action beats punctuated by character drama
- fast pace of script
- small but well developed team
- cast chemistry
- Have a distinct "cutting edge present" setting (about 2 years from now) so that science fiction elements will not feel out of place
- Inter hero tension and face off
- Massive climatic battle to showcase the combined might of the Justice League

How to Do things differently
- More "brains". Have a script that challenges the expectations of the viewer
- Less emphasis on comedy, more on intrigue and drama
- Nolan's "gritty realism" has been done. Leave it at that.
- Delve into "thinking" topics such as gray morality, power of the media, hidden agendas, unexpected twists.

To appeal to (Casual Movie audience)
- Tight script with little breathing room. Keep the tension and energy up (no sappy romance scenes)
- Keep people guessing. Dont be predictable (be it villian motives, potential twists etc)
- Do not draw directly from existing storylines or continuity heavy elements (no 5 minute monologue about the history of the Green Lantern Corp)

To appeal to the comic book fan
- remain true to common expectations of the characters' portrayals (Superman = "black and white" morality boyscout)
- Keep portrayals in line with "modern age" and new 52 style

CHALLENGE
= With only 2 existing characters (Green Lantern and Superman) to work with, origin stories for the 3 other Leaguers (Wonder Woman, Batman, Flash) need to be worked into the script.
= Origin story for Batman has to be unlike those already see in film (Batman Begins, Batman Year One)


BASIC ASSUMPTIONS
1) Justice League movie takes place immediately after 2013's "Man of Steel" Superman reboot
2) Ryan Reynold's Green Lantern is a part of the same movie universe
3) Superman and GL are the only known active Superheroes

AT THE ONSET OF THE STORY
a) Superman's battle with Zod rekindles public suspicion about extraterrestrial intelligent life
b) The Parallex incident was incidentally NOT covered up by the government but acknowledged as an extraterrestrial attack.
c) This is a world which is ill at ease with itself. Earth knows there are aliens in other parts of the universe and scramble to create the means to defend themselves. (think of post-War of the Worlds but with all cities and infrastructure intact)
d) Department of Extraterrestrial Operations becomes a public presence. The world is united in the common purpose to protect themselves against extraterrestrial threat.


To be continued in PART 2 - character descriptions