Justice League: Worlds Collide is the title of an unproduced Justice League direct-to-video film set in the DC Animated Universe. It was originally going to be produced concurrently with the first season of Justice League Unlimited, bridging the gap between the second season of Justice League and the relaunched show. Among other things, the movie would have depicted how Wonder Woman acquired her invisible jet ("For the Man Who Has Everything") and the expansion of the Justice League's membership.[1] The production was canceled just before the start of recording.[2][3] The plot would have involved the Crime Syndicate as the main antagonists.[4]
On August 1, 2008, Bruce Timm went on record saying there was a good chance fans will be seeing Justice League: Worlds Collide.[6] However, it appears that this specific version of the film will not be made, as the story has been changed into that of Justice League: Crisis On Two Earths, which is not part of DCAU continuity.
Background information
- Originally, the Justice League episode "A Better World" was intended to be a "Crime Syndicate story".[4] Eventually the Crime Syndicate became the Justice Lords and the idea was stored for this project.
- The title of the movie is frequently misspelled with an apostrophe as World's Collide.
- According to Timm in an interview with CBR.com, James Woods, the voice actor of Owlman in Justice League: Crisis On Two Earths, was originally attached to play that role in this project.[5] Also, he commented that he originally wanted to cast George Newbern and Kevin Conroy in the roles of Superman and Batman, but didn't because they did not want to connect the TV series with that movie.[6]
- After the cancellation of the project, the production team considered to upload the film's script as a pdf file or adapting it into a comic book. DC Comics wanted to adapt the script into a comic book during a long time, but finally abandoned the idea.[7]
References
- ↑
“ Worlds Collide was going to bridge Seasons Two and Three; besides the origin of the Invisible jet, it also set up the entire super-sized JLU concept. I don't wanna say anymore about it, just in case it ever does get made (there's still a chance, albeit a slim one at the moment, seemingly). ” — Bruce Timm (circa 2005)
- ↑
“ Yes, there is a Justice League DTV in the works... kind of. What happened was, the Home Video division commissioned us to write a JL DTV, right around the time we were gearing up for Season Three. Dwayne McDuffie and I came up with the story, Dwayne wrote a terrific script, I designed loads of new characters, we started story-boarding, Andrea Romano had assembled a killer cast, and we were just getting ready to record it, and then Home Video slammed on the brakes, and it was put on the shelf for the time being. This is a good thing, really! The original plan was to do the DTV and Season Three concurrently but, long story short: we would have been stretched way too thin. JLU is a difficult enough show to do by itself, without having to prep a feature-length movie at the same time. Home Video is still interested in making it, apparently, so hopefully it'll happen. ” — Bruce Timm (circa 2004), The World's Finest [1]
- ↑ [2]
- ↑ 4.0 4.1
“ Fun fact: "A Better World" started out as a straight-up Crime Syndicate story, but evolved into something else while we were 'breaking' the plot. Another fun fact: Worlds Collide, the currently still-on-hold Justice League DTV, featured the Justice League versus (you guessed it) the Crime Syndicate (obviously, we like alternative universe stories, too). Maybe someday ” — Bruce Timm, Toon Zone
- ↑
“ Curiously enough, James Woods was the one person that actually ended up playing the same part that he would have played if we had gone ahead with “Worlds Collide” all those years ago. Back in the day, he was our choice for Owlman. Unfortunately, he and Andrea Romano, and I think even Dwayne, they might be misremembering it, because I’m pretty sure we had cast him as Owlman. They’re saying he was originally cast as Lex Luthor in the earlier version, but I’m pretty sure he was Owlman. Everybody else, we had a completely different cast in mind. We, frankly, thought he was a longshot. He’s a big name actor and he’s really, really good and too expensive. But at the time, he signed on for it, and years later, I was like, “Well, he was our original choice for Owlman. Let’s see if he would still be interested.” And he still was, and there we were. ” — Bruce Timm (circa 2010), CBR.com [3]
- ↑ [4]
- ↑
“ But we had the script lying around that we really, really liked that Dwayne [McDuffie] had written, and it kept coming up in conversations. It was like, “It’s a shame that this script exists and we can’t do it. What should we do with it?” Should we put on one of the other DVDs as a pdf file, just so people could read it? Or should we turn it into a comic book? ” — Bruce Timm (circa 2010), CBR.com [5]
