Justice League Mortal will forever be known as one of the great superhero movies that never was. But now we have a slightly better idea of how that movie would have looked, as a new image of Armie Hammer’s Batman cowl has surfaced online.
Designer Ryan Unicomb posted a previously unseen piece of concept art on his Instagram, showing a sculpted bust of Hammer wearing a form-fitting Batman cowl.
This art suggests Hammer’s Batsuit would have been more heavily comic-inspired than that of fellow Batman actor Christian Bale. Whether Hammer would have been able to turn his head in this costume is another matter entirely.
In fact, the long ears, sculpted browlines and generally sleek quality of the mask hearken very closely to the painted art of Alex Ross:
This isn’t the first time Unicomb has given fans a glimpse of this canceled Justice League movie. In 2019 he posted another piece of concept art showing a very different take on Hammer’s Batsuit. While retaining the classic gray, black and yellow color scheme of the comics, the execution was much different in this case.
Unicomb wrote, “The costume was a mixture of Kevlar and chain mail with a kind-of robotic exo-skeleton under his arms, legs and back designed to help Bruce fight crime even when his body was in its most broken state. Reflective paint over the eyes and chest would catch any available light, heightening his intimidating figure in the darkness. Thick padding around the neck would make sure no blows to the neck or throat would incapacitate him during battle. This was a concept that never went [past] this initial ‘discovery stage’ during development.”
This abandoned suit sounds like it was inspired more by Ross’ design in 1996’s Kingdom Come, which featured an older Bruce Wayne wearing an exoskeleton to support a body battered by years of fighting crime. That comic also inspired the look of Kevin Conroy’s live-action Bruce Wayne in the Arrowverse’s recent Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover.
For those who don’t remember, Justice League Mortal would have been directed by George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road) and was set to star Armie Hammer (Call Me by Your Name) as Batman, D.J. Cotrona (From Dusk Till Dawn series) as Superman, Adam Brody (The O.C.) as The Flash, Santiago Cabrera (Transformers: The Last Knight) as Aquaman, Megan Gale (Mad Max: Fury Road) as Wonder Woman, Hugh Keays-Byrne (Mad Max: Fury Road) as Martian Manhunter and Common (Suicide Squad) as Green Lantern. Fans got a small glimpse of the entire Justice League Mortal cast in 2018, when Collider acquired a very low-res costume test photo featuring all seven League members.
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As this concept art shows, Mortal was well into preproduction before being canceled by Warner Brothers, one of many casualties of the 2007-08 Writers Guild of America strike. The film was even set to feature an epic brawl between Superman and Wonder Woman. Unicomb himself is attached to direct a documentary chronicling the canceled DC film, but the current status of that project is unknown.
What do you think of this new glimpse of Armie Hammer’s Batman? Let us know in the comments below.
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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
Source: IGN.com Justice League Mortal Designer Reveals Armie Hammer's Batman Cowl