Warner Bros.' present DC cinematic universe may have properly begun in 2013 with Henry Cavill's Superman in Man of Steel, Australian director George Miller was originally the man to bring the DC Universe to life through Justice League: Mortal. Rather than follow MCU's Phase 1 formula that concluded with The Avengers, the DC approach for an interconnected universe was going to start with the legendary league of iconic heroes. Aimed for a 2009 release date, the project had its leading director set, a screenplay that prompted the studio to fast-track the movie as well as a full cast that would bring the 7 heroes together for the first time in live-action on the big screen. Things were all coming together both in front and behind the camera as principal photography was approaching.
But with the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike along with a number of crucial factors, Justice League: Mortal was delayed and ultimately scrapped. Following the conclusion of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy with The Dark Knight Rises, the DCEU became Warner Bros.'s prime focus for their IPs of DC characters. However, even though filmgoers didn't get to see Miller's vision in theaters, glimpses have made its way online in the last decade. Through various concept art and BTS-photos, actors such as Armie Hammer, who was set to play Batman, has talked about the canceled Justice League movie. In the age of fan-driven projects about films and TV shows that almost got made, Ryan Unicomb, an Australian filmmaker and content creator, will bring the untold story to life about what happened to Miller's movie. In 2015, Unicomb announced that he was planning a documentary that would go deep into Justice League: Mortal. Almost half a decade later, the director has revived the project under the official title Seven Friends: George Miller's Justice League.
Promised to include everything from never-before-seen designs, photos, and more to interviews with the talent involved with the movie, Seven Friends is aiming to begin production later this year. Following the announcement of the documentary's revival since March, Screen Rant had the chance to chat with Unicomb as the Australian director discusses his vision for Seven Friends. Throughout the interview, Unicomb talks about his big admiration of fellow Australian director Miller, the vision for the original DC cinematic universe, collaborating with artists such as Bosslogic, and how important it's to celebrating all the hard work that was done for Justice League: Mortal that never got to be seen on screen. In addition to that, he clarifies what role Warner Bros. has and hasn't in the documentary and how the production schedule is currently laid out for the project.
It has been over five years since you made the initial announcement that you were doing this documentary about George Miller's Justice League. What makes now the right time to return to this project and give this new life?
For anyone who works in the Australian film industry in particular, it's sort of the thing that you would always hear stories about. People were involved, and this was gonna happen, and blah blah blah, whatever. It was so well known inside of the industry, but no one outside of the industry knew what happened or the work that took place or anything like that. I first heard about it in 2013, just in general, working with people that had been on some of those bigger sets. I was still fairly new to the industry at that point and basically spent a couple of years thinking about it, and how I would go about it and questioning whether or not I was going to be the right person to do it in the first place. And then I got talking to a friend of mine, Maria Lewis, who is a very accomplished author and has produced TV series and radio series and all sorts of stuff. She's not involved in this iteration of the project, but we got talking about it a little bit, and she was like, "You can't have you can't talk to anyone in Sydney that's got any expertise in the art industry and not run into someone who was part of this thing."
It's just so strange because there's no information about it at all. You can't really find anything; there's no artwork, really; there are no interviews, really. It's just little snippets and bits and pieces, like HitFix, talking to Armie Hammer during Lone Ranger press and that kind of stuff. There just wasn't any solid information about it, but everyone that I talked to, and everyone that Maria knew, had spoken about this grand production that just happened to not come together. And so, we started in 2015 [by] doing preliminary stuff. We went to conventions just to start getting background B-roll footage and stuff that you can use when you're needing to fill out time on a documentary; you want to get the everyman's perspective on something rather than someone that was directly involved with the project. We went to one of Australia's biggest comic conventions, which is called Supernova, in Sydney. We went down there and we just started talking to people. Just getting a general feel of, like, what does a team of superheroes mean to you?
We had an opportunity to interview a couple of the original Power Rangers that were there as guests, and we're just talking to them about what does it mean to you guys to be the first superhero team on television, for general audiences and a lot of the kids that are now adults. You guys were the first real superhero team that was really the upper echelon of pop culture, and you couldn't turn around and not see your photo and stuff everywhere. They had really good input, but it was more just like a general test. We just wanted to talk to the everyman and get a general perspective on like, "Well, what do you think about Armie Hammer as Batman or D.J. Cotrona as Superman or Anton Yelchin as Kid Flash?" And a lot of people were like, "Well, who are those people?" There were a couple of names in there that people knew. Megan Gale - obviously, we're in Sydney, and most people in Australia know who Megan Gale is because she's one of our big supermodels. And she's kind of well-known as a media personality here in Australia. A lot of people were kind of like, "I don't know whether I see her as Wonder Woman or not. I can't really picture it. I mean, she's pretty, and she's tall and has dark hair and olive skin, but can she act? Could she have pulled it off?"
And at that stage, it was literally just a preliminary thing. We announced it, I think, just before or maybe just after that, and it blew up. And it was way, way, way, way bigger than we ever thought it was. So the initial plans were like, "Alright, sweet, we'll put something together. Maybe get 15-20 minutes worth of stuff, collate that into almost a pitch version, and then we'll go to the governing bodies like Screen Australia or whomever, and see if there was any sort of general interest in it." I was actually in the throes of being in development on my first feature film as a director for a movie called Stream, and it literally blew up from this interview. I had an interview with a website in Australia called IF Magazine, or Inside Film, and they were talking to me about Stream. Whether I have any plans for my debut feature as a director and who was involved and whatever, and what's next. It was just this offhand thing, I was like, "I'm really, really interested in the George Miller Justice League movie that didn't happen." And it absolutely blew up. It wasn't the focus of that interview whatsoever, but it absolutely blew up. Within probably two or three days, THR had reached out, Deadline had reached out, Variety reached out. The spokesperson for Kickstarter, or one of the big crowdfunding companies, had reached out and was like, "Yes, this is going to be the perfect platform. Keep us updated; this is going to be amazing."
It was obviously considerably bigger than what we were expecting. I knew that it was big, because these are the biggest and most important characters in pop culture, depending on who you speak to, but that's my general belief. The Justice League is the premier team-up of comic book heroes. So all of a sudden, people are reaching out and all sorts of stuff. I, pretty early on, got in contact with George Miller and his people and had a fairly hefty conversation back and forth with his assistant. On behalf of both George and his producer friend, Doug, that he runs the company with, they were like, "Look, George's extremely humbled that you think that there's a story here, but it's not really something that he's genuinely interested in. He doesn't really believe that there would be an audience for a story like that." At that point, I was like 25, and I had other stuff going on. I had other projects that were moving at a faster rate than this particular project was. And I was kind of like, "Cool, George doesn't want us to do it."
Warner Brothers, for the most part, was pretty good. Obviously, there were things that they didn't want releasing, and they were pretty clear with us that there were things we weren't to talk about and stuff like that. I'm fine with that. They want to protect themselves and they want to protect the people that were involved and stuff like that. But now it's 2020, so at that stage, we let go of it for a while. I kept in contact for the most part with everyone that I'd touched base with. That's people that were actively involved in the project; names and stuff that I can't give that yet. People talked about NDAs and whatnot and being able to share information. We're at a point where, I felt, it's now 2020. There's a pandemic happening; everyone's locked in their houses; everyone's retrospective and a bit reflective on how they're spending their time. Because all of a sudden, people don't have to go to work or can't go to work. They can't see friends; they can't have the conversations that they would usually have. And one day, I was kind of like, "There's no better time than now to be able to focus on something and tell a really great story, and do right by the artists that did all the work."
I don't have to talk to George or his producer or anything like that. I don't have to have them involved to tell the story of the artists. And from a legal standpoint, Warner Brothers, I believe, will be fairly happy with the way that we're going to frame it all. There's been a dialogue there already. So what makes it the right time to return to the project? Obviously, we're in a different world from an entertainment standpoint. Warner Brother's big Justice League movie has come out, and they are on a different trajectory for things. The comic industry in particular is suffering more than it ever has and anything that can put eyes on these characters, I think, is a really good thing. If it helps sales in any respect, then we've done our job. But for the most part, it's just getting artists their due respect.
Some of these people work full-time on things for 12 to 18 months, and it's the opportunity of the lifetime to draw Superman or create a costume or, in some people's case, sculpt a Bat cowl or build a Batmobile or whatever. And it's been over 10 years, and that artwork and that work that they did has never ever been seen or shared with anyone. So, they've all just got this chapter in their careers that they can't close the book on. Because there's just no closure there, and that's basically what it's about. Talking about why it didn't happen; what it would have been. We really want to focus on the difference that it would have made to the Australian film industry in the long run, and I guess to the general pop-cultural landscape as it is now. Just pose a few questions and talk to a few people that that would have interesting opinions on such a thing.
You talked about Warner Bros. giving their blessing. With Seven Friends now happening, can you talk about their involvement at this point? Is it easier now that Justice League has come and gone?
Easier is definitely not the right descriptive word. It's as difficult as ever to get information and for the most part - and this is part of why it's taken so long - it's akin to getting blood from a stone. Because for so many people, it's such a sore point. For producers, it's a sore point because millions of dollars were spent on something that never came to fruition. For some people, it was something that would have made or broken their careers, and they have had to readjust their expectations of what their career was going to be or is. Is Warner Brothers involved in what we're doing in an official standpoint? No. For the most part, it's all based around individual relationships that we've been building over the better part of half a decade. And just being able to clear certain things a day at a time. I will continue to do that; it will continue to be a day at a time thing with different people, never wanted to press the wrong buttons. Some people have got PTSD about a project this big, because it's not some unknown character piece they were working on that they just did a couple of drawings for. It's the Justice League. And it took a long time for them to get to the point where they were ready to make that movie; what Mortal would have been.
And it took them a long, long, long time to even get a small amount of the progress again and to actually get it over the line as they did in 2017. And even that was a nightmare unto itself, that specific project. It's like trying to climb a mountain and falling down every time, and then when you finally get to the top, it's an avalanche that just carries you back to the bottom. They finally got a Justice League movie made, and from an audience standpoint, it basically reset everything. It took everything back to the beginning again. For some people, that's a really good thing. For some people, it's not. It's hard to say, "Yes, they're involved," or "No, they're not involved," because it's at this stage, in particular, it's just very muddy water. But the endgame is to obviously have access to the Warner Bros. vault and be allowed to have access to basically anything that we need to be able to show people what it would have been and get respect for the artists and whatnot.
Most of the things seen in this documentary, whether it be art or costumes or footage, will be accessed through individuals who worked on the film? Independent of the studio.
100%. And everything that I've been able to share ever, anything that's ever been released related to Justice League: Mortal, unless it came from a specific... There was a storyboard artist [that] was like, "Sweet, whatever, I'm just gonna throw some stuff out there." Didn't get in trouble, threw it out there. Matt Hatton; he's a concept artist. So many people are involved at such a high level, in regards to Warner Bros. Obviously, the upper echelon of who's in control changes all the time, but it's all about the protection of the brand. I like to think people have gotten a little bit more - I don't want to say reckless, I want to say courageous, but I don't know if that's even the right word - in that it's something that they've wanted to talk about forever. Seeing that we've been able to get access to some stuff, I've been able to clear some of that stuff and then release some of that stuff, has given them a bit more courage to say, "You know what? This is something that I'm really proud of, and it's been ten years. I'm just gonna throw it out there. And if I get a takedown notice or a cease and desist letter, that's fine, but it's out there." We live in the age of the internet. Once something's out there, that's it. It's out. All of the stuff, at this point, is collected from individuals that were involved with the project in one way or another. Which is part of why it takes so long.
How far have you gotten in the pre-production process? I'm sure the virus has made things difficult, but there's still so much you can do from home.
I don't have a cut or anything like that, because there's a zillion interviews that need to take place. There's lots of travel to get us to where most of these people leave, and obviously you want to make it as convenient as possible for people to be able to just sit down and talk to you about something. I've lined up interviews with people, but it's all schedule dependent. If the end of the world lets up at any stage, so that we can kind of get an idea about it from a timeline aspect, I have every intention to have this out by Christmas next year. I think once I've got the footage, it's then a matter of just bunkering down for a good solid six to seven months and being able to put together the best-presented version of what this can be.
It's kind of hard. I like to refer to it as a living document, in that [my co-producer] Jordan and I basically have a timeline mapped out from a production standpoint of where we'd like to be. You have markers that you want to hit, and obviously that fluctuates with Coronavirus and borders being closed and schedules for actors and whatnot. Artists are working on other things, and some of these people still work and they're still involved in some of these big productions or they have their own art studios. So, you're sort of at the mercy of their availability. But for us, my goal was to have it out by Christmas 2021, and to be able to celebrate what it was with everyone around the holiday period.
So where we're at? You're always in a state of production. It's a variable state of production. So, in 2015, I was in production. In 2017, I was still in production. In 2020, right now, I'm still in production. Because information comes out when you're talking to people, and you get a new email that comes through and contradicts something that you've had a conversation with someone else about. And then it's about trying to correlate the truth in what you're actually going to be putting forward. There are lots of fact-checking because you don't want to then be misleading on story facts. We're resuming production as of 2020, which is why we got to a point where we actually prepared a media release and sent it out to a few people. And that's why we specifically used the keyword or the hot phrase of 'resuming production.' because it never ended definitively. As with all good stories, things have to go into a level of stasis for a while, while other things develop; other story beats develop and information is collided. And then once we're in a position to move forward again, we move forward - and that's where we're at right now.
Had Justice League: Mortal come out, the DCEU would have been significantly different. Will Seven Friends go into the cinematic universe the film was meant to launch?
Oh, yeah, 100%. We're in a position where we'd love to talk to people like Kevin Smith or someone that's sort of the everyman. Sit down and have a good conversation with people that are really in pop culture lore, and really talk about if this movie had come out been successful, launched the collection of individual films that they had wanted to do based off of this one team up. Because that's the question that everyone asks: what does the movie landscape look like had this come out? Basically releasing the same year as the very first MCU entry, Iron Man, in 2008. Warner Bros. literally just starting with the team, like they'd beat Avengers to the mark by 4 years if they had done this.
And then the question comes down to, if Mortal came out and wasn't successful, does that then put doubt on the Avengers franchise. Is Disney then saying, "Warner Bros. spent $210 million, and it didn't do very well?" There's just always what-ifs. It is a small part of what we want to do with the documentary; [we] have some conversations with people about the changes in the landscape. It's a what-if conversation, and we want to stay laser-focused on the particular project and what it was, rather than necessarily dream about what it could have been. Because, obviously being a documentary, you want to be fact first.
But yes, that's definitely something that we want to talk about. We'd love to talk to someone like Kevin Smith or yourself... or Hector Navarro, who works for DC Daily, but he's also, fairly well known in the pop culture realm. Just a general conversation to get a conversation started around how the landscape would have changed had it actually happened. So yes, that's definitely something that you'll see.
You talked about the unsung heroes who participated in Justice League: Mortal. Is this project a way to not only recognize their work, but also explore how this has affected them since?
100%. I feel very privileged to be in a position where I have artists who were at one stage, or even still now, considered to be at the top of their game in their field to be brought in by someone as revered as WETA Digital or Warner Bros. or someone like George Miller to work on stuff. You can imagine, you grow up all through the 60s, Batman's on TV. You fall in love with movies, 1989, Tim Burton's Batman drops and you're in love with it. 2005, Batman Begins drops, and it's just upping the game all the time. You're in love with the arts industry, you've become a costumer or whatever it is that you've gone into, and all of a sudden there's a phone call. "We want you to build a Bat-suit. We want you to design the new Bat-suit for George Miller, for Warner Brothers. This is going to be the definitive Batsuit for the next five or six years, and we want you to design it." I would imagine it's a certain state of euphoria for a long amount of time and disbelief because it's the call that what everyone wants.
And then you go away and you work, you pour your heart and your soul [into it], you've got the weight on your back of a billion comic book fans to build the perfect Bat suit. And you are proud and happy and content with the work that you do, and then bam! The next phone call you get is 12 months later, 13 months later, 14 months later. "Sorry, dude. Great work, though. Send us all your photos, delete everything. You can never show anyone; you can never talk to anyone about it." I can't fathom how disheartening that would be. It would be like having a kid that you were never able to talk about or see. Art is that to people; art means that much to people. When you work on something so hard for so long, it becomes special. You love that work. Otherwise, you wouldn't do it, because it's so detrimental to what most people think of as normal working lives. The art industry is brutal. And of course, people will say, "Oh, you knew that when you got into it." But Batman means something to people. Superman means something to people. Wonder woman means something to people.
It's my privilege to be in a position where people are reaching out to me now saying they're thankful that I'm doing this because there are things that they worked on and poured their heart and soul into for years that they have spent the better part of a decade thinking they would never see again and would never be able to share and would never be able to talk about. I can imagine there's a certain amount of mental relief in being able to do that. There'd be a certain amount of elation or pride that would come from finally being able to show off the work. And I fully suspect that there will be conversations about all the negative aspects to working on something of this magnitude that didn't actually come together. Because for some people, this may have been just another job; that may have just been a Tuesday. But for some people, this would have been the job that, they had been working for free for four years, and this was their first paid gig. Then it falls apart, and they never pursued it after that. Which is a thing that happens all the time. And that's what it's about; it's for the artists. That's what it's for. It's for the artists and for the fans.
What do you think is the biggest misconception that people have about this project or the most common misunderstanding about what happened to this film?
To be honest, the biggest thing that I see all the time is that people [say], "I'm so thankful it got canceled because who'd want a motion capture, animated Justice League movie in 2008?" And that's not what was gonna happen. There was never a conversation; that was never a legitimate thing [that] was gonna happen. Like, a 3D animated, mocap-based movie. The logistics behind that and the budget behind that would be astronomical and impossible. So, that's probably the biggest thing that I see.
I think the biggest misconception that I see out there is that it was just that the writer strike happened and that killed it. Even in the most preliminary bit of research and conversations and interview that I had, on record and off record, there's so much more to it. I see a lot of people that are just like, "The Australian film committee wouldn't give them the tax offset. And then the writer strike happened, and Warner Bros. just pulled the pin." And it's not that. It's very intriguing. There's no criminal activity or anything like that. You're not going to watch this, and it's the next Tiger King documentary series or something, but there's a lot of twists.
It's a very interesting story, and for people that exist outside of the industry and are interested in like how films come together or how films don't come together in this respect, I think it's just eye-opening for the most part. I think people will learn a lot about contracts and deadlines and unions and all that kind of stuff. I think it's just an eye-opening story for people that are generally interested in how something this big falls apart, especially with the talent involved. Because it's not a question about money; the money is there. You'll quite often hear people talk about getting movies made, "We just need the money." Like, if someone puts up the $20 million or whatever, we can just make the movie. It just doesn't happen like that. It's just a general misconception from people outside of the biz, pretty much. I'm really excited to sort of blow the lid off it, so to speak, and give people a bit of an idea behind the scenes of how things come together and how they don't.
How aware is George Miller of the documentary's progress? Is there anything you'd like to say to him about getting this story made?
First and foremost, for me as an Australian person - born and raised Australian, a country kid that moved to the city and was exposed to movies in a roundabout way late the game, 2006 or 2007 is when I really fell in love with cinema - George Miller is the premier Australian filmmaker. He's the poster boy for international Australian film, especially from a blockbuster standpoint. You talk to anyone about Australian cinema, and the first thing that comes up is either a Mad Max film or they talk about Babe. We're fans first and foremost, and that's the big thing. That's something I think we never really got to put forward to him the first time around - that the reason that there's so much interest is not just that it's Armie Hammer was Batman or that Megan Gale was Wonder Woman. It's not just based around interest in these characters, because there's been other big movies that were close to coming together and that didn't come together. There's Superman: Flyby, and there's a heap of different Batman v Supermans, and there's a couple of different Batman movies that got very close to being made as well. It's specifically the fact that you've got an director like George Miller, a very distinct type of filmmaker; very successful and highly regarded. Mad Max: Fury Road is on most people's top 10 lists when they talk about Australian film. We're fans first and foremost. The interest is that it was George Miller's Justice League, not that it was Justice League, and it didn't happen. What does the aesthetic of George Miller's Justice League look like? We can read versions of the script, we'll show you what the costumes would have looked like, what the dialogue sounded like, what Armie's Batman voice sounded like, and things like this. But the aesthetic and the direction - what does that look like for George Miller's Justice League? And that's the interesting thing to me.
There's a million different movies that you can make documentaries about that didn't come to pass. But as someone who is Australian and has worked in the Australian industry and has seen some of the stuff that took place, I've never been more interested in a movie that never happened. Ever. And there is a huge audience specifically that wants to know the story of what George's Justice League looked like. I guess if there's something that we would want to say to him, if there's some chance that he reads this, it's that the reason that we want to make this is because we're fans of his. It's not a whodunnit or a point fingers thing, or "This is how this movie died. These guys killed it." It's not that at all. It's literally that we want to celebrate the work that did take place, and there's definitive proof of the work that did take place. I've seen it; I've been able to share some of it with people. And for the most part, even the people that aren't that interested, the general response is, "Huh, that's different." And that's enough for me to go, "Cool." If someone who's not even really that interested goes, "Wow, that's different," that's enough for me. That's part of why I want to make the documentary. And he definitely knows about it.
I read the way that his Kal-El talks to people and I read the way that Batman just has this unending level of paranoia to who that character is. Does that make him any less of a hero? No. But I can almost picture in my head where he was ready to take these characters. Yes, there were changes to costumes and stuff like that. And from an aesthetic standpoint, Supes probably looks the most different to everyone. There were some big differences with Batman, in particular with the costume. But the focus on what was the most important aspect of those characters was there. And he's a DC fan. He's come so close to directing DC stuff so many times, that people would faint if they found out about all of it. It's just one of those things that's hard to put into words, but he knew exactly what he was doing. There's a reason that they went straight to George Miller after Jason Reitman said no. Jason Reitman, who made Ghostbusters, was the studio's first choice. He was kind of like, "I'm not into it." And then they basically went to no one else. They went straight to George, and he was like, "Cool, let's do it."
You've teased that cast and crew will be involved to some degree with the documentary. Are there any names you can share?
Well, obviously, you want to talk to everyone. For some people, there's issues because there's hang-ups. And some people are still involved fairly heavily within the Warner Bros. family, and for them, it's more of an issue of not wanting to tread on toes because they finally got the opportunity to be part of a different iteration. So, for some of them, there's trepidation. I've definitely got confirmed people - actors, crew, other stuff - but not anything that I want to put out there in the realm at this stage. Because like I said, you're always in development, you're always in production. It it comes together as it comes. together, so I would hate to be on here and be like, "This person specifically is going to sit down and talk to us." And then the schedule comes around and they get called away for something, and it just doesn't pan out. I've definitely got people confirmed, or as confirmed as they can be, and some of them are the big players. Big hitters that you would want a documentary about this particular thing to be talking to. That's what I can share.
And I wanted to shift the focus a little to your collaborators. You have your co-producer Jordan, you have Bosslogic and Cosplay Chris coming on board. Can you talk about what makes each of them the right partners for this and how they were approached?
The initial announcement art from 2015, that was the first time that I had collaborated [Bosslogic]. We did a series of seven announcement posters for what was then Miller's Justice League: Mortal. He and I are very good friends; we speak very often about many different things. So for him and I to have come back together again, with some renewed energy, was a no brainer and was always going to happen. We're always looking to collaborate. He's blown up massively in the last few years, and he's had the opportunity to work on some amazing, huge marketing rollouts and stuff like that he's worked for. He's worked for Disney. He's done stuff for Warner Brothers, he's done stuff for UFC; he's done stuff for DC in particular and been able to collaborate with amazing people like Jim Lee and other artists on big official things. It was a privilege the first time; it's a privilege this time. He's one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. He's someone that I can easily refer to as a mate, as a friend rather than a collaborator. It's the same with Jordan. Jordan and I have known each other since 2009, maybe 2010. We actually went through film school together, and we pretty much wrote everything that we've done together. He's basically my best mate. It was never a question of if he was going to be a part of it; it was just a matter of how involved he could be. And obviously, with everything that's happening at the moment, with businesses shutting down and people have got all this free time, it didn't make sense to have him involved a small amount. We had a big conversation about it, and he agreed that if I was happy for him to go all-in on it, then he was going to go all-in on it.
He's come on to co-produce, and so far that's been exceptionally fruitful. If you ever need stuff hunted down, or a bit of support because you're waning on your thought process, he's absolutely an amazing partner. Cosplay Chris in particular, I've been a fan of for years and years. He does amazing custom collectible toy stuff, where he's taking everyday Mattel toys or Hasbro or whomever, and turning them into really high-level custom toys. But he's most notably known as a cosplayer and a costumist. He takes the expertise that he's built and learned over his lifespan and shares that online. I just really liked that, at the heart of his content, it's not about him. It's sharing the artistry and it's focused on the art. He's a very, very, very nice bloke, and he and I have had a couple of really good conversations. I don't think I've ever seen him recreate a costume or do an original take on a costume that I haven't absolutely loved. So, that was a total no brainer. I was actually really, really happy when I did reach out to him and say, "Look, this is what I'm thinking of doing. I do think it's feasible. Would you be into it and see what's it going to cost and who needs to be involved?" And he sat with it for a little while and then came back to me, and I'm absolutely stoked.
Because it's a big thing for these characters; the iconography of the costumes. To be able to reproduce them at a legitimately high level with someone as expert as Chris is, is hugely exciting. That helps from a commercial standpoint, in recreating scenes, and we want to we want clear imagery because camera technology has changed since camera tests were happening back in the day. It's just about making the best product at the end of the day. We want to make sure that by the time this comes out, it's the best thing it can be for the people that are involved. It was important to me that if we were going to reproduce the costumes, that it was a worthy reproduction of the work that those amazing artists did ten years ago.
As a fan, what were the biggest aspects of Justice League: Mortal that you got super stoked for when you first heard about the project?
Well, first and foremost, it was probably the involvement of George himself. Like I said, being Australian and his filmography, you study it. They talk about in film school, Mad Max... all the way forward to Fury Road, and all the things that he did along the way. Huge things in the Australian film industry and people don't realize that, like, Babe won an Oscar for Visual Effects. His involvement was a huge thing in that respect. I have grown up with these characters and love these characters. Superman is my favorite character in anything ever. There's no one like him; there's no fictional character that means more to me than Superman. To know that there was an opportunity to have these characters interact on the big screen in a format that we just had never seen before. And knowing that you had one of the oldest studios in existence, the powerhouse that is Warner Bros. behind it, that's hugely exciting. How can you not be excited by that? For some people, it's a different story these days because there's a very specific type of thing that they want. but
I was basically a kid when they were talking about it. 2007, I was literally just finishing high school. So, to know that stuff of that magnitude - to me anyway, from a cinematic standpoint - can be made in Australia is eye opening. The same 30 kids that I went to kindergarten are the same 30 kids that I graduated with. When I was in grade 11, I think, they were shooting Superman Returns in or near Tamworth, which is about an hour and a half from where I grew up. ...And I kind of couldn't fathom that there was something so huge and so important, in my mind, that was being filmed in this random little backwater country city. So, to get a couple more years under my belt and then realize that these massive and hugely important cinematic experiences - talking about Matrix and stuff like that - can be filmed in somewhere like Sydney, and it's made by Australians. There's Australians in it and Australians on it. It's an Australian product for all intents and purposes; they just don't have Australian accents. And then it releases, and The Matrix changed cinema and cinematography for many years. Bullet time was the hot thing that everyone wanted to use and talk about and do and recreate and everything, even to now. And they did that in Sydney.
It was just eye-opening to think that a cinematic version of the Justice League - and at that time, Justice League the animated series was still hot on everyone's TV. It was not necessarily pointed at my age group, but you couldn't escape it if you were involved in a comic conversation or anything like that. It will always come up. So, to know that they were going to translate those characters to this huge big cinematic experience and now we're gonna make it in Australia, that was really eye-opening to me. Even today, it inspires me that they're able to do stuff like that in Australia. It still blows my mind that things like Thor and Aquaman are here. And people have no idea; it just happens under their nose, comes out, and they get to go and see these movies for two hours of their time. But for 1000 people it was eight or nine months worth of full-time work, and for a handful of people, it was three or four years worth of work. It just blows my mind. It's magic.
What inspired the name Seven Friends, and were there any other contenders for the documentary's title?
Between the initial announcement and now, we basically got our hands on a massive collection of artwork and production work that we'd never seen before. And it's all watermarked with Seven Friends. I was feeling like, "I need to confirm that this is legitimate stuff," that the stuff that I'm looking at is pertaining to the actual project that we were trying to talk about in the documentary. And so I reached out to a couple of people, and they were like, "Yeah." For about six or seven weeks in from George coming on board, that was the production title that the entire thing was under Seven Friends. They'll start a company or something, and it'll be Seven Friends productions or whatever. They do it for tax reasons and all sorts of stuff, but I just loved it. I thought that perfectly encapsulates what it's about because it literally is a story about seven friends having to come together to save the world.
But some people don't even know that movies have got fake titles when they're getting made, so it was important for me anyway to put that at the forefront so that people knew that it was a behind-the-scenes look. Because a lot of people were getting confused by Miller's Justice League: Mortal, and there was crossover on Wikipedia pages and IMDb pages, and people talking about things but don't quite know whether they're talking about documentaries or feature films or whatever. It was just important to me to land on something that was different enough that people knew that upfront that it was a behind-the-scenes thing. So I just thought, "Cool. Seven Friends: George Miller's Justice League." I just think it's the most descriptive way that I could announce what this project is about. But also keeping it fun, because they're obviously having fun with it by calling it Seven Friends. I think that's really great.
Have you gotten in touch with the screenwriters about getting involved and telling their side of their involvement with this film?
Pretty much anyone you can imagine me reaching out to, we've reached out to. I've reached out to them and there's been correspondence. It was a weird time for writers at that point, because the writers' strike was looming for many people that were working on stuff. There was something like 13,000 studio projects that were all [halted], and that's just the above the line stuff that the Writers Guild knew about. So, yeah, there's been correspondence and stuff there. There are a couple of people that I've reached out to, and for some people understandably, it's a sore spot. It's just about picking and choosing who you want to be reaching out to when you really want to serve the project at its heart, rather than deviate too much. Because the twists never end.
It's one of those things where all of a sudden, you've got 60 hours worth of documentary, and you want to release it as a feature documentary. There's four hours of content that gets left by the wayside that you initially thought was worthwhile. Like I've said before, we're always in production. Something can pop up and be 100% a go. And then within a matter of weeks, correspondence comes to a close, or there was issues from a legality standpoint or from an NDA standpoint. It's just about getting information from anywhere that you can without stepping on people's toes or burning bridges. We understand that, and I understand that. And that is why it takes so long, because to do it the right way and the respectful way, it's a very long process.
What platforms are you looking at to get the funds? How will fans be able to join the campaign when it launches in July?
At the moment, we're basically looking at a heap of different avenues. There have been people that have just approached us about funding things upfront. I've done that kind of stuff in the past, where I've dealt with independent investors and that kind of stuff. And the thing is, we really need to keep it in control for the community. And that's part of why we're talking about crowdfunding, because then there's a sense of ownership, and we want that. We want community involvement as much as possible, so we've been talking to a lot of these people that are fan artists and people that have written fanfiction and stuff like that or have been fans of specific actors.
Can't really announce any of the additions, because we're still in development - not development, we're obviously in production - but have to have at least a rough idea of what travel is involved and if there's appearance fees, and being able to hire equipment and stuff like that. Because we don't quite know the delivery platform at this standpoint, you've then got to weigh up how this thing is gonna come together. ...Too many variables to really lock down big bits of information at this stage, in regards to the actual campaign, but it'll just be another step.
Once we have sort of a number that we know we'll need to finish it off, the community will be the first to know. That's really where we're at at the moment. It's such a long process, and I wish I could talk more about it and tell people about things that they'll have access to, things that they won't have access to, things that they may get or may not get, if they're in a position to be able to donate to campaigns and stuff like that. But the truth of the matter is, we're just not at a point where enough of it's locked down to really announce anything. And I would hate to mislead people, that's the big thing.
One thing that I'm sure had an influence on you is the infamous The Death of "Superman Lives": What Happened? by the late Jon Schnepp? Did his approach inspire yours?
Not really. I think the biggest pieces of connective tissue between what Jon and Holly Payne did with Death of "Superman Lives": What Happened and what we're doing with Seven Friends is that it's just a DC property. There's been numerous documentaries made over the years about films that didn't come together. Jodorowsky's Dune, Lost In La Mancha, a friend of mine made a documentary about Roger Corman's Fantastic Four movie. It's a niche documentary [genre]. But I knew Jon and was very friendly with him. It was actually organized at a point where some Mortal stuff was finally starting to get out from artists, and stuff was getting leaked, and I gave Jon some very low-res photographs of some early costume tests from WETA workshop. Not cleared or anything like that. And I just said, "Look, if you ever feel the need to pull the trigger on releasing these.... Do so." He pulled the trigger and showed those photos, and I'm happy that he did. Because it sort of gave people at least a little bit of an understanding that this was a real thing that was going to happen.
It's fascinating to watch what Jon did... It was such was such an interesting take like to be able to actually sit down with him. Ours is kind of less of a what happened, as in what happened to cause it to fall apart, and more of a sense of, "Let's explore what actually did happen," rather than focus on the fact that it didn't come together or the things that ultimately killed it. It's just very different movies. But Schnepp, from a pop culture standpoint, obviously sort of stepped it up. Nicolas Cage is a big name and Tim Burton, again, is big name. To be able to land one of them on camera for an interview was a huge deal. I miss Jon all the time. I used to talk to Jon all the time. We'd spoken about trying to do a TV series spin-off version of his movie, called, "[whatever the name of the movie is]: What Happened?" Just trying to find ways to collaborate, basically.
He was an important figure in pop culture, and he was an important figure to me and a mate. And so when he just, out of nowhere, passed away, that broke a lot of hearts. And I thought about hanging it up about stopping doing this, because it was like, "He would have loved this more than anyone else in the world, to have been able to see some of the stuff that we're going to show people." But you readjust your thinking and think, "Do it for Jon. Do it for all the Jons." This project in particular, the very last thing that you'll see at the end of this movie is, "in tribute to Jon Schnepp."
How soon will we get some updates leading up to the fundraising campaign? Do you have something that you are getting ready to announce?
Well, it's hard to tell at the moment, to be honest. The whole world's dealing with something that's, from a medical standpoint, completely unprecedented. So from a timeline aspect, it's genuinely really hard to put dates on stuff. But we would obviously love to get to a point where we can launch some new promotional artwork, have more locked down details on email campaigns happening, and really just be able to have a better understanding of what's going to be available to us in the bigger picture so that we can pitch that to the community.
I know what I've got, and I know what I could get, from an artwork and video content standpoint, and interviews, and that kind of stuff. But it comes down ultimately to the logistics of it, the monetary output and stuff like that. And that's where there can be uncertainty to a degree because it falls in the community's hands, and they need to trust that I'm the right person to make the documentary and stuff like that. That's really what the campaign would be about; selling that our team are the right people to tell the story and get it made on their behalf.
Timeline: I would suspect that within the next 8 to 12 weeks, we would have some major things to announce. Whether that's names attached or a campaign announcement video or something like that, hard to say right now. But within 8 to 12 weeks, there'll be major announcements.
Seven Friends: George Miller's Justice League is currently scheduled for a Christmas 2021 release.