Doug Liman might be out promoting his new film, The Wall, starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson and John Cena, but there’s no way he could escape questions about his upcoming ‘Justice League Dark’ film. He sat down with Collider’s Christina Radish to discuss the new new film, but she was able to get some tasty tidbits from the director about his take on the new movie and how he’ll decide when it will get made.
First, on his approach to Justice League Dark:
“Yeah. I have a really amazing take on it, that is in keeping with my approach to superheroes. Jason Bourne is a superhero, of sorts. Aaron Taylor-Johnson and John Cena, in The Wall, are superheroes. They’re very grounded, but the amount of training and stuff that soldiers bring to the field, they’re like Iron Man. If they open up another pouch, they’ve got another thing. It’s amazing, how resourceful they are and how much stuff they bring into the field. They’re like superheroes. So, I’m really excited, with Justice League Dark, to actually look at what it’s like if I actually tackle a real superhero, but it’s not gonna look that different from my other superheroes.”
His thoughts on when the film might get made:
“I have to have a passionate connection to my films, which I do with Justice League Dark. I have a way into the story that’s personal, the way I have a connection to The Wall. Not that I’ve ever been a soldier or been in the field, but the level of perseverance and the fact that Aaron Taylor-Johnson and John Cena just keep picking themselves up when all seems lost, I feel a connection to that. I feel like I have a little understanding of that because, in my own way, I’ve had moments of despair and that all is lost, and I’ve picked myself back up. I feel a real connection to Justice League Dark. But part of my process is that, when I finish a movie, the movies I choose to do after it are guided by the experience I had on the previous movie. I chose Mr. & Mrs. Smith specifically ‘cause I had just made The Bourne Identity and made a film that glamorized being an action hero, and I wanted to make the exact opposite. I wanted to make a movie that glamorized maintaining a marriage, and that made the action hero part seem easy and made the marriage part seem hard. The Wall is a reaction to Edge of Tomorrow, where I was like, ‘I don’t need time travel and aliens to take a hero and pin them down in an impossible situation. I can do it in a much simpler way.’ And that was The Wall. The paint is still wet on The Wall. I’m not sure what I’m going to take away from it, and therefore what I’m gonna want to do next.”
It will be interesting to see which gets made first, ‘Justice League Dark’ or the ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ sequel that is now titled: ‘Live Die Repeat and Repeat.’