In the wake of Iron Man's summer success, WB sees lots of Green in second-string superheroes.
Warner Brothers apparently liked writer/director David S. Goyer's script for the Green Arrow feature Super Max enough to put the proposed film in motion.
"Green Arrow seems to be one of the characters in the wake of this phenomenal summer book-ended by Iron Man and The Dark Knight," Goyer told Sci Fi Wire's PATRICK LEE at San Diego's Comic-Con International over the weekend.
In the draft of Super Max that Goyer (The Dark Knight) submitted to Warner, Green Arrow finds himself framed, stripped of his identity and imprisoned in a high-security penitentiary for supervillains, with whom he must team up to clear his name and escape. But, ironically, the story that writer Justin Marks (Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li) originally proposed for the film (which has come to be called by some Green Arrow: Escape from Supermax) wasn't earmarked for the bow-slinging DC hero.
"It started out as a supervillain-escape idea, and the idea was, well, we can either go Marvel or DC," said Goyer. "And I talked to both of them, and I kind of said, 'Well, who can you give me?' Because I needed a superhero that I can bounce off of. And I don't know. For my money it was, if we went Marvel, it would be Captain America. If we went DC, maybe Green Arrow. And Green Arrow seemed like the best fit."
The non-powered costumed character also fits into the current trend of spotlighting second-tier comic heroes that the recent Iron Man proved to be so lucrative. Warner's eagerness to green-light (no pun intended) Super Max obviously stems, at least in part, from this.
"Green Arrow is, you know, probably on the same level as Iron Man," Goyer said. "And, yeah, I mean when a movie like Iron Man does $300 million, and DC, Warner Brothers, realizes, 'Wow, we've got 20 of these kinds of characters.'"