Joel Silver on Course with Speed Racer, Logan's Run, and Wonder Woman

While he was promoting his newest film, The Reaping, producer Joel Silver gave up a few details about some of his other upcoming flicks.

Starting with Speed Racer, he said Emile Hirsch's going to play Go Mifune, the title character in the film. He also talked about how the Wachowski brothers are handling the script:

Is the movie going to have a lot of blue screen?

Joel Silver: I mean, it's a really - these filmmakers are really - first off, they approach everything from a stand point of story and script; they're writers first. So the script they wrote is really spectacular and it's a really great story and incredible characters. And they were impressed by Speed Racer because it was the first Japanese animation they saw when they were kids; it was the first thing they were aware of a different kind of animation, It made them learn about Japanese animation, so it's kind of seminal, and they always like the idea of the material, so they've always known about it. And they've always wanted to make a movie that could be seen by the whole family, because every movie they've made have been adult movies. And they're also great film buffs; they love Capra movies, they wanted to make a movie that could have real sentiment. And they feel that a lot of the adult films they see or are aware of are very cynical. But they feel that when they come to the family movies, some of the animated movies that we see are, have a great sense of - they feel they return to a kind of filmmaking that they love, so they feel like they can do that in this movie. It doesn't have to be a cynical story, it can be a movie that is as human and as accessible, and is sentimental. So you're going to see a kind of real story, and then technologically, you're going to see things that you've never even dreamed of, or you've seen before.

Are they mixing in some of their beliefs and philosophies?

Joel Silver: Oh yeah, sure, sure; but they way it's being made is - I keep showing the studio tests and they sit in their room, and I show them the test. When the lights go up, they just look at me and they say, 'Can you show that to us again?' They don't even - they can't believe what they're seeing, it's just the way they're working with images and how they're putting it together. It's going to be the first HD movie they've ever shot, cause they've never shot in HD.

Silver also talked about the future of some of his other franchise pics. Logan's Run was put down when Bryan Singer went on to do Superman Returns, but Joel says, "I'll figure out a way to do it."

As far as Wonder Woman, "We're struggling with it, but we'll fix it, we'll solve it."

Is it possible the character will appear in the Justice League?

Joel Silver: I hope so, I hope that happens; I don't know where that - again, I said this over at Wondercon: for years now, Marvel's just been kicking the DC Comics' characters ass; they've been killing them. And look, I don't know if that's because the Marvel characters are more self deprecating and more they twist on the super hero character. But I mean, DC is the foundation of the super hero character; they're where it came from. And Watchmen, it's definitely not - it's more in the Marvel direction, but I would hope that we can bring some of these DC characters. We're doing Batman now, and I hope they can do another Superman, I hope we can figure out Wonder Woman, I hope they make Justice League; I hope we can do a lot of these characters, cause I think it's good to get them out there, and I'd like to win that war.

It seemed like Joss Whedon was the perfect person for Wonder Woman; is there anyone else to bring on?

Joel Silver: I don't know, we'll have to find a way; we just couldn't, we just struggled with it, we couldn't find a way into it.

You'll have to wait for these three, but The Reaping hits theaters April 5th; it's rated R.