Sometime between 1999 and 2001, I wrote up a fan casting for MARTIAN MANHUNTER: The Motion Picture for my late fan site The Rock of the JLA. Besides being terribly out of date, my casting of heroes and villains skewed very much toward the relatively recent Modern Age. Since the Martian Manhunter was in something like 150 solo adventure strips over thirty years before that period, and about a third as many in the fifteen years I focused on, I essentially cast the Manhunter-centric Justice League movie. I'd like to rectify that...
It's funny that I've chastised myself in the past for picking too many older actors in the first Martian Manhunter movie fancast I did in the late '90s, then allowed three years to pass in my follow-up attempt which is now itself even more full of middle-aged actors. Luckily, I can favor maturity, since the budget on an Alien Atlas feature would be less than epic, and there would be plenty of prosthetics/mocap besides. Also, if my J'Onn J'Onzz is 51, I don't exactly want Jennifer Lawrence playing his would-be seductress/mass murdering fatal attraction.
I often find myself using Cay'an to contrast D'Kay D'Razz, and there's some fun parallels between that casting and this one. If Clea DuVall can come off as a bit introverted and asexual, Fairuza Balk is the extroverted, unhinged sex bomb that would treat you as prey whether you liked it or not. Both were child actresses who played in "witch" movies and saw their big breaks in soon-to-be-star filled hip horror flicks. Balk has a deceptively girlish voice that can speak all sorts of hate, and an extraordinarily expressive face that can be beautiful or grotesque depending on her contortions. Nobody this side of Amanda Plummer brings the crazy like Balk, who adds a lethal edge to create one scary ass ovulating last Martian psycho.
-I approve of Fairuza Balk in anything.
ReplyDeleteThis is a good casting choice.
ReplyDeleteWell, I live in a cave so I have no idea who either of these gals are, but Fairuza Balk has an exotic look to her.
ReplyDeleteI'm just too biased against these two characters to offer any substantive comments. I'd rather see Bel Juz in a movie...
But I already did Bel Juz, and I'd rather have all three!
ReplyDeleteI know, I know...but in my mind, Martian Manhunter continuity stops right before OYL. I'm just so bitter at DC at this point that my bitterness keeps seeping backwards in continuity. Eventually it will hit the 90's.
ReplyDeleteSo Cay'an, D'Kay D'razz and Bel Juz all together--how would that pan out, exactly?
Well, the Martian Manhunter's "golden age" was the '80s and '90s, so exceptions must be made.
ReplyDeleteThe all-female Martian Manhunter movie would have to be a sequel, of course. The audience knows Bel Juz is a traitor from a previous installment, but J'Onn still thinks of her as a trustworthy confidant. It turns out Bel's misinformation is what sets Cay'an murderously against him. Meanwhile, a not yet known to be insane D'Kay D'razz starts trying to woo J'Onn, and a body count starts to build between Cay'an's plot and D'Kay's jealousy/psychosis. Bel Juz continues to pull strings, but the "puppets" start to slip out of her control, and then Hunter Commander J'en turns up to really complicate matters. J'en joins the list of suspects in the murder mystery, while also becoming a target of D'Kay, Cay'an and Bel Juz, ultimately leaving J'en and J'onn as one another's only salvation in the crossfire.