Super Max

[Locutus of Bored]

Pardon me if this has been posted before, but I didn't see anything about it and it seemed like a pretty interesting concept:

Green Arrow Plans Jail Break With Help From Joker, Lex Luthor In Upcoming Film
Screenwriter Justin Marks discusses superhero movie about 'a guy who's really just the sort of MacGyver type.'

By Shawn Adler, with reporting by Brian Jacks
Aug 13 2008 1:34 PM EDT

He's a DC Comics hero with nearly 70 years of backstory and mythology, a modern-day Robin Hood who uses every tool in his arsenal to fight for the little guys of Star City, but in the pantheon of great comic characters, Oliver Queen (a.k.a. the Green Arrow) ain't exactly the most well-known mask around.

Heck, he won't even be the most well known in his own movie, scribe Justin Marks told MTV News.

"Oh, we've got Lex Luthor in there," Marks gleefully revealed. "I'm pretty sure Riddler gets his shot — Ed Nigma gets his moment."

Tentatively titled "Green Arrow: Escape From Super Max," Marks' take on the titular titan is unlike any superhero movie out there in that it takes the familiar tropes of comic book films and mixes them with the long-established traditions of prison movies. In the film, Queen is unjustly locked up in a federal penitentiary for meta-humans and forced to rely on a whole bevy of villains to make his escape — villains like Luthor, Icicle and even the Joker.

But the best superhero of all in the Green Arrow prison movie? Would you believe it's the prison itself?

"It's a very, very awesome prison. I majored in architecture in college, and design is how I actually started in. For 'Super Max,' designing that prison, it had to be the kind of thing that was a character in and of itself," Marks said. "We're in a world where instead of just trying to contain a guy who's really big, you're trying to contain a guy who can — in the case of Icicle — who can freeze things. What kind of a cell would a guy like that need in order to have his powers neutralized? So to escape from Super Max they have got to go through the most elaborate heist we've ever seen, involving superpowers. Because the prison itself kind of has superpowers!"

That means Queen won't get a traditional origin story along the lines of Bruce Wayne or Peter Parker. But you wouldn't really want that anyway, Marks asserted.

"By the time a movie like this comes out, we will all understand origin stories. And mainstream audiences now are willing to suspend their disbelief to the point that we can believe that a world exists where superpowers exist and people dress up in costumes. So now what? Now what do we do? And I call this Superhero 2.0," Marks said. "We do deal with his origin — he's got a very interesting origin with a desert island and everything else — but we get to the core of Green Arrow not by showing where he starts but by pushing him into a key moment in his life where everything he has is lost, and he's got to earn it all back. I think for audiences it's going to be a great way to get to know a new character."

Queen himself is the "perfect hero" for this sort of reinvention, Marks said, as he's a B-level super without all the heavy baggage of Batman or Superman. More important, though, he's also a real guy, a mortal without any meta-human skills or weapons, a vigilante who gets by on nothing more than his preternatural intellect and guile.

http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1592718/story.jhtml#

I think it's a pretty clever way to introduce the character and the presence of so many other well-known DC villains should provide a draw even for people not interested in the Green Arrow himself.

 

[Captaindemotion]

The movie concept has been discussed on the BBS some time ago but now for a while. Some people argued in favour of a traditional origin story for GA, while more seemed to like this idea. I was initially in the former camp, but have come round to the latter. A sort of superhero Prison Break, I suppose. And let's face it, Goyer has a pretty good track record in the comic adaptation field. Glossing over Nick Fury, that is!

One thing I didn't see mentioned in that article but that I have seen elsewhere is thatout of respect for Heath Ledger, the Joker won't be seen in the prison. We will see his name on a cell, but that's it.

If the recent story about the Superman series being in a sort of limbo is correct, then I don't think there'll be a problem with them using Lex Luthor in this movie. However, I'd be surprised if they were allowed to use Edward Nygma/ The Riddler, in case that treads on the toes of a third Nolan Batmovie.

 

[Haytil]

This actually sounds like a really cool concept - and I generally hate super-powered movies, with lots of villains or heroes (a la "Justice League").

I think Warner Bros. is realizing that it's most succesful comic book movie franchise (Batman) works so well because it's so realistic. And this movie sounds like a much more realistic, gritty take on the "Super Teamup" concept than the "Justice League."

One thing I didn't see mentioned in that article but that I have seen elsewhere is thatout of respect for Heath Ledger, the Joker won't be seen in the prison. We will see his name on a cell, but that's it.

I don't think it's just out of respect for Ledger - story-wise, I don't see ANYONE (supehero or otherwise) teaming up with the Joker, unless they absolutely had to. He's generally regarded as the most evil, most scary man in the DC universe (by the other inhabitants of said universe). There's probably a scene where someone mentions asking the Joker to help out, and everyone says "No Way!"

But I wouldn't be surprised if you hear a laugh in the distance, or from the dark, meant to be from the Joker, as a haunting reminder...

However, I'd be surprised if they were allowed to use Edward Nygma/ The Riddler, in case that treads on the toes of a third Nolan Batmovie.

Yeah, there are some interesting implications with regards to "Batman 3" if they want to include the Riddler in either of these movies. My guess is that they'll wait until Nolan decides which villain(s) he wants to use - if it's the Riddler, they'll use a different villain for "Supermax." If not, they'll use Ed Nigma.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Personally I wouldn't worry about trying to line it up with Nolan's Batman at all. Nolan's doesn't have meta-humans (as far as we know) or super-powered aliens. I'd just establish a new continuity for this film (and perhaps Justice League in the future) separate from the more "realistic" world of Begins and Dark Knight.