David Goyer Talks Defunct Green Arrow Movie; Won't Be Directing DC Movies

Back around 2008, a Green Arrow movie was in development from David Goyer (writer on the Batman The Dark Knight movies and Man of Steel) and Justin Marks (writer on Top Gun 2 and The Jungle Book). The plot of the movie centered on Oliver Queen being framed for murder and sent to prison, with his subsequent escape. The movie was titled “Green Arrow: Escape From Super Max” and featured a host of villains including Joker, Riddler and Lex Luthor.

While recently speaking to Den Of Geek, Goyer made note that with DC doing a villain-centric Suicide Squad movie, his Green Arrow film was ahead of its time.

“I think it absolutely was,” Goyer said about the project.. “I think if that script had come over the transom a couple of years later… It was completely ahead of its time. By the way, everything I see about Suicide Squad looks fantastic and it’s a different story. But it was absolutely ahead of its time. You know, Marvel was considering doing the Sinister Six and at the time, God, I think this was eight or nine years ago that we wrote a couple of drafts, but it certainly was like this oddball project at Warner Bros at the time, they were like – even though the script was good – ‘why would we make a movie about a bunch of villains? That makes no sense.’”

Goyer continues with mention that Warner Bros. at the time just wanted to focus on the more popular characters in their stable, but now with Marvel having success with Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man, it was only a matter of time before a villains movie saw the light of day.

“The executive on it was really visionary,” Goyer said. “But the higher-ups, none of whom are at Warner Bros any more, just thought at the time, you know, we just want to make Batman and Superman movies. We don’t want to make any other characters. But this is before Marvel had really taken off, before more obscure projects like Guardians Of The Galaxy or Ant-Man or things like that had huge success, before the current gold rush I guess, if you will. It’s natural that eventually someone was going to make a villain movie, so that’s just what happened!”

The report also notes Goyer said he isn’t planning on directing any of the upcoming DC movies.