Super Teams, the new frontier for Hollywood...

The dominoes appear to be falling.

With the The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer about to be released, rumors that the Watchmen is floating into the casting stages, additional rumors about an Avengers movie, a script in the can for the Justice League, and three X-Men movies, and The Fantastic Four, not to mention The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen under the belts of Hollywood studios in recent years, it looks like the movie mill is really just now ramping up its foray into the world of super teams. But how many could they do, and how successful will they really be?

Hollywood is two for five in quality entertainment with the super groups, producing decent films in only the first two X-Men films.

We have yet to see Hollywood produce a decent product from an Alan Moore work, so I have relatively low expectations on the long-rumored Watchmen movie, particularly considering what is leaking about casting choices which include Keanu Reeves as the favored actor to play Dr. Manhattan.

As for the Avengers, there is no script yet, although there is a writer who has discussed working on an Avengers movie.

The Justice League is another matter.

Even though, according to reports, a script has been turned in, with DC tied up in Superman and Batman projects, this could either be a long wait before we see anything made, or it could be that there will be several re-writes of the script which is said to include both of DC's heavy hitters.

This is one of those projects that I would love to see made, but doubt it would be done right (anyone who has seen clips of the ill-fated and never aired pilot of the Justice League television show shot in the late 90's on youtube knows of which I speak). I first really got into the JL while reading Batman in the mid-1980's. I thought highly of Keith Geffen's writing and enjoyed many of the satellite characters like Blue Beetle, Guy Gardner, and of course J'onn J'onz.

The title itself was not terribly popular, getting canceled after a 10-year run (although not terribly unpopular, either), but, as always, was reincarnated as the Justice League of America. The JLofA was more serious, leaving behind some of the humor that laced the pages of its 1980's counterpart. One of the questions becomes, what incarnation of the league will the movie tackle?

Without Batman or Superman, the major characters, probably in order of recognition for the non-comic book fan become Wonder Woman, The Flash, and Green Lantern. That begs the question of marketability with the general public in the eyes of the producers.

I leave you with this question - can a Justice League film without Superman or Batman be worth the investment of cash into big name actors if the Superman and Batman are written out of the script?

A quick note on FF: Rise of the Silver Surfer

I don't know yet whether or not I will go to see this film. I have only seen parts of the first Fantastic Four film and didn't think a whole lot of what I saw. I am, however a Silver Surfer geek. I have several issues of of the original series published in the 1960's as well as a number of the one-shot specials, etc. (although the series that was published during the 1990's wasn't nearly as well done as the original, so I have only a limited number of those issues).

All that aside, I wanted to mention that I feel that the Surfer looks good in the previews (I'm not saying anything about the movie, just the Surfer's appearance), and it's interesting to note that Doug Jones is playing the Marvel standby.

For those of you comic geeks who are unfamiliar with Jones, trust me, you have seen him before. Jones is a veteran of the comic book film adaptation game having appeared in Batman Returns (1992), Tank Girl (1995), Mystery Men (1999), The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle (2000), Men In Black II (2002), Hellboy (2004), and the upcoming Hellboy II (2008), not to mention other fantasy favorites such as the Hush episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as one of the Gentlemen, and as both Pan and the Pale Man in Pan's Labyrinth.

You may not recognize Jones as he is often in monster make-up (in Hellboy he played Abe Sapien).