Justice League: A big band of superheroes, a coterie of egos, a menagerie of metahumans, and aliens, and fish-men, way too big for just one movie. Right? Wrong. Maybe...
In October 2014, Warner Bros. told us we’d be getting a pair of Justice League films, titled 'Part One' and 'Part Two', both directed by Zack Snyder and to be released in November 2017 and June 2019. A couple of weeks ago, though, the DC Extended Universe’s new galactic overlord, co-producer Geoff Johns, tweeted that "Clearing up any misconceptions – the Justice League movie is called [Justice League](Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice)." No parts about it. Then, when Empire visited the set last week, around halfway through the film’s shoot, producer Deborah Snyder defiantly denied that there was ever a part two. “We were only ever planning, and we are only doing, Justice League,” she said. So, no part two then? “No.”
A few hours later, Zack Snyder seemed to contradict that. “We still have a release date,” he said of a second movie. The confusion, one assumes, is over the nature of a follow-up. It’s a storm of semantics, but that 2019 release date will likely give us a sequel, as opposed to a part-two of the same story. This initial Justice League is “a complete movie,” says Snyder, although he hopes it leaves things open, whetting appetites for more: “It doesn’t end like, ‘Well, that’s the DC Universe!’”
Of course, you don’t set up a franchise to rival The Avengers then immediately put it to bed. The chances are there's a public cautiousness at play here, with DC and Warner Bros. only just getting going with their schemes and plans. If things go well, we will, of course, have a whole slew of sequels. Just don’t call them parts.
In other Justice League news, Snyder is shooting the movie using 35mm. As with Batman v Superman, and unlike Marvel's movies, film continues to win out over digital in the DC-verse. Read our Justice League set report for much more on the movie's plot, tone, character arcs, costumes and gadgets