It’s either a serendipitous twist of fate or an indictment of superhero cinema’s cyclical nature that two stars of one of the most famous comic book adaptations that was never made ended up co-starring more than a decade later in the DCU’s Shazam! franchise.
George Miller’s Justice League: Mortal has become the stuff of legend, with the Mad Max architect assembling his entire cast, gathering a crew, and even having costume fittings done before Warner Bros. opted to pull the plug entirely mere months before the $220 million all-star epic started shooting.
Good things come to those who wait, though, with one-time Flash Adam Brody and short-lived Superman DJ Cotrona circling back around to embody the superpowered versions of Freddy Freeman and Pedro Peña in Shazam! and upcoming sequel Fury of the Gods. In an interview with ComicBook, though, the former hinted that Justice League: Mortal may have been better off as a “what if?” scenario.
“It’s nice to have DJ in this. We share that piece of history. Honestly it was pretty brief. I think he was in Australia longer than I was – I thin he was cast before I was, and he was out there training I believe. I was out there for a couple of weeks. We were doing some table reads and some notes sessions. George Miller’s a genius, and he’s got some really eccentric, cool people around him. I fully believed in it; I really liked the script, and I thought it was going to be really good. In hindsight, and seeing what he did with Mad Max, I only think that moreso, but who knows? Maybe the ‘what could have been’ is better than what would have been.”
Armie Hammer’s Batman, Megan Gale’s Wonder Woman, Common’s Green Lantern, Jay Baruchel’s Maxwell Lord, Anton Yelchin’s Wally West, and Hugh Keays-Byrne’s Martian Manhunter would have joined Brody’s Barry Allen and Cotrona’s Clark Kent in the lineup, which remains an undeniably fascinating near-miss to think about.