Whedon was such a popular choice with fanboys when he signed on to direct, write and produce WW. But the guy had such a hard time writing the script and went nowhere with it.
Whedon wrote at least one finished script.
After that he kept giving them synopses of future scripts. Only they weren't giving him any direction other then saying they don't like what he was doing and not explaining what they wanted changed.
There didn't have passion for the project, either.
Any writer could get frustrated under those conditions. Thats why he left.
Joel Silver, the guy who owns the WW film rights, doesn't have any idea where to go with the property. How can a film get made when the people in charge don't know anything about what they're adapting and show no interest in learning it?
He seems more interested in making a Plastic Man movie with the Wachowski's then this.
All of this was discussed in detail on the Whedon/WW movie threads.
Whedon would make an even better director for WW then writer. he just needs the right script to work from. WB should hire some Battlestar Galactica (Ron Moore), Doctor Who (Paul Cornell) or Mutant Enemy (David Fury, Tim Minear) writers who get the franchise more then he does.
Conversely, Berlanti seems like an odd choice for GL because of his resume, but apparently he nailed the script.
That means Berlanti has the writing chops for GL, not the best director for the project.
Experience or not, the main concern would be that his schedule doesn't give him very much time to direct. So the ideal situation would be that he stay on as a producer or whatever and get another director that does have time and experience.
Agreed.
Speaking of "small-time" directors moving up to blockbuster superhero franchises, don't forget about David Dobkin (Shanghai Knights, Wedding Crashers, Fred Claus), who is signed up to helm the Flash. That is, if it ever gets off the ground.
Dobkins has a better resume for Flash then Berlanti has for GL. Most fans are still uneasy with him as the director.
Or there's Peter Segal (Adam Sandler comedies, Get Smart), who is on Shazam.
Shazam can be a comedy. That's why its different from most super-hero adaptions. Segal can do great relevant updates on old franchises and make good action movies. He did both with Get Smart. Berlanti doesn't have anything close to that in his directing resume.
Last I heard, not much has been done on the Flash script and Shazam is still in the scripting stage. So GL is obviously a lot further along.
Agreed.
