"Super Max" Wants Bourne!!

There has been alot of talk about DC trying to break in more of their characters, and not just their A-List heroes either! Green Arrow has been around for close to 70 years in the DC Universe, and he is finally getting his own feature. The proposed film is called "Green Arrow: Escape From Super Max," and does not only feature Green Arrow, but a slew of other DC characters/villains and even a couple A-Listers! Recently screenwriter Justin Marks talked with MTV Movies about the script, how he's sees the film coming to life, and whom may be a perfect fit for the character.

The major difference with "Super Max" compared to most superhero movies, Green Arrow will be arrested and jailed into the superhero/villain prison called Super-Max. "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." This a really cool idea by DC, they take a second tier superhero but place in the heavy hitting villains like Joker, Lex Luthor, and Riddler! "Oh, we've got Lex Luthor in there," Marks gleefully revealed. "I'm pretty sure Riddler gets his shot — Ed Nigma gets his moment." So Oliver Queen (Green Arrow) will have to team up or trust villains that he has helped take down in order to escape and clear his name! This movie is really gonna kick all kinds of ass!

When Justin Marks was asked how he would deal or not deal with Green Arrow's origin he replied, "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."

Justin Marks went on to further say what makes Super Max so amazing is 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!" The prison definately sounds insane and should prove to pretty amazing on-screen.

Green Arrow is a perfect character for setting up various story arc's in the DC Universe. Green Arrow has been in a lot of various cross-sectioning stories that cover quite a few of DC main charcaters including Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, many other members of the Justice League, including Oliver Queen's long-time love interest Black Canary. (DC recently told Variety that they were indeed going the Marvel route now, with setting up major characters before doing a team-up film, deeming the long-proposed Justice League film dead in the water.) Super Max however, is different because they are simply using A-list villains to promote a second-tier character, that mainstream audiences would definatley embrace. Oliver Queen, much like Batman or Ironman is a normal human, no super powers. He is a modern day Robin Hood, and when done correctly should be a goldmine at the box office and potentially a great franchise, or at least cross-over films like Marvel did with "Incredible Hulk" and "Iron Man." Marks added, "In the same way that Marvel is starting to do, when you're in the [filmed] DC Universe [where] this world and this world and this world — they all exist in an interrelated web. It's the kind of thing that I think absolutely is about spelling out a couple different roads for a couple different characters."

Producer David Goyer told Wizard magazine how they would utilize the story to make for a one of a kind superhero film, “He’s Green Arrow for the first 10 minutes of the movie, and then he’s arrested and his secret identity is revealed. They shave his goatee and they take his costume and send him to prison for life, and he has to escape. It’s like ‘Alcatraz,’ and he has to team up with, in some cases, some of the very same villains he is responsible for incarcerating in order to get out and clear his name. Of course, tons of people try to kill him while he’s in there. We’ve populated the prison with all sorts of B and C villains from the DC Universe. For the fans, there will be all sorts of characters the hardcore comic book junkies will know, but they’re all going to be there under their human names and no one is wearing a costume, but there will be a lot of characters with powers and things like that.” A list of the main villains that Queen will come in contact with are Shock Trauma, Gemini, Icicle, Split, Floronic Man, Count Vertigo, Calculator, Blockbuster, all of Aryan Nation: Iron Cross, Heatmonger, and Backlash, Pied Piper, Merlyn, Djinn, Tattooed Man, Multiplex, and Cascade (that doesn't even include any of the A-listers)! The more and more I read about this project the more I like. This is a very unique idead that has all the elements to make for a great piece of cinema!

The biggest tidbit I found when reading this interview was Marks description of Oliver Queen versus Bruce Wayne. "I see him as the Jason Bourne of superheroes, a guy who exists with his own sort of set of tricks. And I think the difference between Ollie Queen and a guy like Bruce Wayne — they're both rich. They both have their things. But Batman is about his equipment and is about his theatricality and about his detective skills. And Green Arrow is a guy who's really just the sort of MacGyver type," Marks said. "In his hand, anything can be a weapon." That opening statement about Bourne is so intential! Matt Damon is the perfect fit for this film and furthermore to bring further interest to the character of Green Arrow. I hardly think that the comparsion was unintentional, and I will not be surprised when Matt Damon is casted as Ollie Queen aka the Green Arrow!

If you like to read a script review of Super Max from back in may (Click Here)


Thoughts on Green Arrow: Escape from Super Max? Does this sound like the kind of superhero movie you'd go see? Thoughts on Matt Damon as Green Arrow? Wouldn't he be perfect as Ollie Queen?