Broken Frontier

As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros will be developing a feature film based on the DC Comics property the Metal Men. Lauren Shuler Donner and Geoff Johns are involved in the production.

Following the recent announcement of upcoming Wonder Woman and Justice League productions, Warner Bros. is putting another DC Comics property in development: Metal Men. The original team of robot superheroes, created by Dr. William Magnus, were recently revived in the pages of DC’ weekly 52 series and consist of members Gold, Iron, Lead, Tin and Mercury.

The robot superheroes first appeared in 1962 in the pages of the Showcase anthology as a back-up filler. When they proved to be immensely popular among readers, they went on to star in their own series which was cancelled in 1970 after 41 issues. A second Metal Men series saw the light of day not soon after, but bowed out in 1973 after only fifteen issues and dwindling popularity. DC attempted to revive the team in 1993 in a four-issue mini series that retconned much of their backstory, but the robots failed to grasp readers’ attention as they once used to do. Then came 52 #14, which saw Dr. Magnus bringing the crew back to life, and this time, the audience did respond—in large part because Magnus became a key player in one of the weekly series’ ongoing storylines.

The hiring of Lauren Shuller Donner as producer that comes as no surprise to insiders since she had already expressed serious interest in developing a Metal Men movie in the Men In Black vein—a light-hearted movie jam-packed with special effects. That Donner has serious expertise developing comic-based movies with films as Constantine and the X-Men trilogy comes an added bonus.

Geoff Johns, long-time friend of the Donner family and part of the writing team that brought the Metal Men back to life in 52, has stepped onboard the project as executive producer. Eric Champnella will write the screenplay.