5. A Grand Sense of Scope
The Justice League's roster is "bigger" than The Avengers. That doesn't make them
better, but this is a point that needs to be brought up because bigger heroes often mean bigger stories. When I talk about "scope," I'm not talking about cool action pieces that can be filmed in IMAX, I'm talking about the bigger picture of the film. As much as I loved
The Avengers,
JL needs a bigger scope than a final battle in New York City.
The project calls for a director who can handle not just large set pieces, but a plethora of them. You don't want to introduce too many cities or locations, but you do have to remember the fact that these are heroes who have their own defining cities to guard, so coming together to face a massive threat means leaving those respective cities, which is a
huge deal to these heroes.
The
JL director has to be comfortable with numerous filming locations if the film is to be as big as fans want it to be. Note that it doesn't have to outmatch
The Avengers in action; it just has to be a more universal threat.
Best Directors for Scope: JJ Abrams, Brad Bird
4.
A Specific, Identifiable Style
The
JL can also not
be an
Avengers knock-off. While I admit that it'd be great to see another more comic book-esque shot film, early reports of the screenplay say that the film is darker in tone and probably steers away from Whedon's style.
The director has to have a specific style that is not just recognizable to fans of the director's previous work, but creates frames that can stand iconic in retrospect to other movies. Style is more than making things flashy or brooding, it's how a director conveys the subtleties in a movie to make elements reminiscent of feelings the filmmaker wishes to elicit in viewers. Style is sometimes very apparent and sometimes very subliminal. I believe that the director of the
JL movie would have to be very defined in a style that sets it apart from other superhero films.
Best Directors for Style: Zack Snyder, Ruben Fleischer, The Wachowski Brothers
3.
The Ability to Create Genuine Emotion
Understandably,
The Avengers got a free pass when it came to a lot of emotion, being that we understood where the characters were from their previous films.
The Avengers lacked an agenda where we were forced to
care about the characters, and instead made us eager to see how they would all work together.
In contrast, the general audience (if
JL comes out before the solo films), this film will then have two agendas: 1) Make the threat great enough to bring the heroes together and 2) Make us care about character who never got the big screen treatment. In essence,
JL will almost have to be like a war film, giving us a look at all the soldiers and still driving home the point that they're all willing to give their lives for a greater cause. So, case in point, we need a director established in giving us the absolute necessary pining for these characters in order for the film to be a success.
An "all-action, all-scope" director only gets half the job done. If we want to see these characters fleshed out in solo films, then we'll have to have a reason to go see them other than the fact that they're cool or badass (a reason why I don't see a
Deadpool movie being very successful).
Best Directors for Emotion: Ben Affleck, Brad Bird
2.
A Direct and Stand-Alone Story
One thing
TA got very, very right, was that it was its own stand-alone story. While there is the foreboding threat of Thanos, the film can exist within its own merits (as people who missed out on all the solo films could still have a general idea of what was happening). The threat at hand is dealt with, the heroes are assembled, and then they go their separate ways.
The
JL should follow suit. A plot too complicated with all these "new" characters would falter if it ended with an extreme pending continuation. The safe route is for the studios is to make a stand-alone film, see how it does, and then create an overarching story to follow (so, please, keep Damon Lindelof very much away).
Best Directors for Story: Zack Snyder, Ben Affleck, Brad Bird, Ruben Fleischer
1.
A Heart for the Characters
Need I explain more? I know a lot of crap goes to studios and studio heads who try to take the reigns of productions and deviate them away from core concepts of the characters' source material, but Marvel got it right with both Kevin Feige and Joss Whedon. It's something that WB should follow, almost to a "T."
I don't know about Will Beall's history with comicbookdom, if he's a fan or not. But I hope that he is. And a director to follow up with that who has a real heart and passion for the project is truly the way to go.
Best Directors for Characters: Depends on public statements made by directors