Damon Lindelof Discusses JUSTICE LEAGUE, STAR WARS and TOMORROWLAND

I enjoy Damon Lindelof's work. I like that he's a geek like the rest of us that we can relate to, only he's on the inside and gets to tell fun stories and make really cool movies. That's one of the reasons why I respect his thoughts on things going on in the film business, and why I enjoy the things he works on. 

As you know, Warner Bros. has had a very hard time bringing Justice League to the big screen. In fact, they've had a hard time adapting any of their DC characters (other than Batman) as a feature film. It looks like they might have gotten Superman right with Man of Steel, but that has yet to be seen. 

During a recent interview with THR, Lindelof was asked how he would solve the "Justice League problem" if Warner Bros. reached out to him for help. This was his response:

The Justice League problem? I think a lot of that depends on Man of Steel. The Justice League problem is not a problem of, who is the bad guy that Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, Superman, whoever you decide to pit them against. The problem is: What’s the tone of that movie? They’ve been struggling with launching their own tone. The tone of Green Lantern is very different from the tone of The Dark Knight. They clearly inhabit two entirely different worlds. You want to feel like someone is establishing a world where the Justice League can exist, maybe Man of Steel is that movie. If Man of Steel works, and it’s great, I think it starts to make sense where Paradise Island is in that world. Because that’s an entirely different world than the one Christopher Nolan introduced.

Lindelof was also asked about Star Wars. When asked if he's had any conversations about Star Wars with J.J. Abrams he said:

When George first sold Star Wars to Disney, J.J. was one of the first people that I reached out to. We were editing Into Darkness, so we were talking about it a lot in terms of, "Oh my God, it’s so exciting. There’s going to be a seven. What do you think that’s going to be?" Me asking, "If they come to you, would you do it?" He said, "I think there’s a billion different things that could go wrong, and I would rather just attend it as a fan. Right now, we’re working on Star Trek, and I can’t even think about Star Wars." That was his mind-set. Then, things progressed. There’s stuff I don’t want to talk about, other than to say: "I’m here, Disney. Very close to where all the decisions are being made." My attitude about Star Wars … having all these out-of-body experiences where I was like: "I can’t believe I’m in these conversations about Star Wars. I never thought that there would be a seven; and this has nothing to do with my involvement, but all these people who I am intimately associated with -- who are my partners on other projects -- there’s a very, very good chance that one of them might end up having something to do with this movie. What does that mean for me?" I didn’t know whether or not I wanted to be involved; and I didn’t know whether or not I didn’t want to be involved; but I did know that no one wanted me to be involved. When the news first broke that Disney was going to do it, two hours into it people were already tweeting, "Just keep Damon Lindelof away from it." It was like: "Why would they even say that? Let’s just embrace the fact that there’s going to be a seven." When I saw that, I started realizing that it would be a lose-lose for me. Although it would be the experience of a lifetime -- to play in that universe, which is entirely responsible for me being here right now -- it wasn’t going to be on seven. The good news was it feels like Disney is going to own Star Wars for a very long time, and hopefully I’ll be writing for a couple of more years. If not seven, maybe eight or nine; that’s what I started telling myself. In the meantime, no one ever asked. Disney hasn’t; J.J. hasn’t; as soon as I saw those tweets, on the day, I started telling everyone I knew that I didn’t want to do it, and couldn’t do it. So I closed that door, lest I face the possibility that nobody will open it for me. God forbid someone actually said, "I want you to be involved in this." I honest to God don’t know how I could ever say no to that.

When it comes to the new project he's working on right now with Disney, Tomorrowland, all he was willing to give them is:

What I will say is: The beginning of it for me was when I had lunch with [president of production] Sean Bailey and [vp development] Brigham Taylor at Disney right around the time … I was already working on Prometheus, so it was at some point in late 2010. I was like: "What is a Disney movie? What kind of movies do you want to make here?" As much as I was enjoying Prometheus, I had the desire to do something original -- to not do Star Trek or Iron Man 3. Those were all offers I was getting for obvious reasons: Because I was looked at as a genre guy. I love to be looked at as a genre guy because I am a genre guy. He kicked it back to me and said, "What do you think a Disney movie is?" And I said Pirates of the Caribbean; when I first heard Disney was making that movie, I was like come on; it’s a theme park ride. That just seems lame. Then I saw the trailer, and I was like, "OK, I’ll be there." I love that movie. The first one is just fantastic. I was like, "Pirates of the Caribbean. To me, that’s the perfect Disney movie. Duh. It’s made you guys billions of dollars." But it’s like, you take something in the parks, and you think you know what it’s going to be, but there’s a lot more malleability that you think that there is because you get to do a totally original story, inhabited by totally original characters underneath the banner of something that feels completely and totally familiar to everybody. But if I told you I was writing a story called Tomorrowland, you would go, "Oh, what’s that going to be about?" in a good way because that’s really evocative of all these awesome things." He just looked at me. That led to a meeting with he and Brig and I. Then that meeting led to me hiring Jeff Jensen to help me understand more about the history of the Walt Disney Co. and the theme park as it pertained to Walt splitting off from Disney and starting WED, which was his own black ops version separate from the company -- while he was still running the company. I enjoy Lindelofs work. I like that he's a geek like the rest of us that we can relate to, only he's on the inside, and gets to make really cool movies and tell awesome stories. That's one of the reasons why I respect his thoughts on things going on in the film business, and why I enjoy the things he works on. 

There's a lot more to read up on in the actual interview, so check it out when you get a chance!