Ever since Marvel stuck their landing with the $1.5 billion grossing Phase One-capper The Avengers, a number of other studios have been making moves to try and mimic the studio’s “Cinematic Universe” model.  One of the most notable reactions to The Avengers came by way of the announcement that Warner Bros. was going to finally try to mount their Justice League movie for a 2015 release.  When a major update on Justice League first broke last summer, we learned that WB had enlisted scribe Will Beall (Gangster Squad) to tackle the screenplay.

The studio has yet to nab a director since then, and a few weeks ago we learned that WB was waiting to see how Man of Steel does this summer before giving Justice League a greenlight.  Now it appears that WB is having an even harder time with JL than we previously thought, as a new report claims that Beall’s script is being entirely tossed out.  Hit the jump for more.

As you can see from the above image, not everyone who’s historically been in DC’s Justice League will make it into Warner Bros. Justice League in 2015. The only confirmed creative type on the picture is screenwriter Will Beall (Gangster Squad) as no director or cast is in place yet, but it looks as if we might have a solid core of characters we can expect to see on screen.  We posted an extensive list of possible superheroes a couple of weeks ago, along with the rumors of the movie’s villain and source material.  That list has been whittled down considerably.  Hit the jump to see who made the cut, who missed out and who might pop up as a cameo.

What can we confirm about Warner Bros.’ Justice League so far? We know Zack Snyder (director of Man of Steel) has a lot to say about how his film fits into the Justice League universe, and that Joseph Gordon-Levitt (The Dark Knight Rises) is reportedly not set to play Batman in the picture. Other than that, we know Will Beall (Gangster Squad) is writing the screenplay which will feature Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, the Flash and other heroes. But who will these heroes unite against, exactly? Will it be an army of faceless evildoers, much like the Chitauri in The Avengers? Not likely, since the Marvel sequel will be opening the same year as the DC picture and The Avengers 2 already has a Mad Titan in Thanos. So who in the DC universe could possibly be more powerful? Hit the jump to find out.

You read the headline right: Warner Bros. is reportedly eying Ben Affleck (Gone Baby Gone) to helm Justice League, DC and WB’s answer to Marvel/Disney’s The Avengers.  Affleck is expected to enter discussion with the studio higher-ups within the next few days.  So far, he’s the only candidate who has received the script from Gangster Squad scribe, Will Beall.  Affleck has also set a recent  precedent of directing films he also stars in, which may mean that we’ll be seeing him on screen in some capacity, whether super-suited or not.  Hit the jump for much more on this developing story, along with a possible role for Affleck in an upcoming film which has long been in development at Warner Bros. [Update: We've added more information regarding Affleck's likely decision]

Warner Bros. injects some much-needed life into their Justice League feature by tapping scribe, Will Beall (Gangster Squad).  Clearly, after Disney and Marvel’s The Avengers put a superheroic dent into 2012′s box office, the studio behind the DC version would like to do the same.  Beall has yet to turn in his draft, but the studio has shown strong faith in the screenwriter, having attached him to their reboot of Lethal Weapon and their remake of Logan’s Run.  The latter will reunite Gangster Squad’s Ryan Gosling with his Drive director, Nicolas Winding Refn.  Hit the jump for more on this exciting news for Justice League and to find out who is writing the Wonder Woman screenplay.

Last month, we reported that Sean Penn and Ryan Gosling had been offered roles in Ruben Fleischer’s 1940s crime-drama Gangster Squad.  Today, TheWrap is reporting that while Penn and Gosling are still in talks to play legendary gangster Mickey Cohen and a cop working to bring him to justice, respectively, Josh Brolin has been offered a role of a cop who would work alongside Gosling in their fight against Cohen.  Will Beall wrote the script based on a series of articles by Paul Lieberman.

Of course, it’s not difficult to offer an actor a role in a movie and we don’t know how serious these negotiations are at this point.  However, a cast led by Penn, Gosling, and Brolin would be an impressive display of acting talent. [Update: Variety reports all three actors are in active negotiations and that "Penn is nearing a deal to star and with Penn, every other offer was expected to fall into place."]

Apparently impressed by his work on the script for Gangster Squad, Heat Vision reports that Warner Bros. is currently negotiating with L.A. cop-turned-scribe Will Beall to pen their remake of the 1976 sci-fi film Logan’s Run. Based on the 1967 novel by William F. Nolan, Logan’s Run is set in a future dystopian society in which people are required by law to be executed at a certain age so as to manage resource consumption. As the story goes, one of the executioners, Logan, goes on the run after aiding and abetting those evading the law.

In addition to its negotiations with Beall, Warner Bros. remake has been gaining steam after casting Ryan Gosling in the title role and handing over the director’s chair to Bronson writer/director Nicolas Winding Refn. As for Beall, his career is on a similar upswing with his aforementioned Gangster Squad being helmed by Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) and gaining interest from both Gosling and Sean Penn. Beall has also been hired to pen a Lethal Weapon reboot for Warner Bros.

While major studios are gobbling up scripts centered on supernatural creatures, Warner Bros. is still finding time to make movies about good, old-fashioned human monsters.  According to Deadline, the studio is offering Sean Penn the role of vicious mobster Mickey Cohen in Ruben Fleischer’s Gangster Squad.  The studio is also offering Ryan Gosling the role of one of the two cops who were tasked with taking Cohen down.  Gangster Squad is based on a series of articles by Paul Lieberman that chronicled an elite squad of Los Angeles police officers in the 1940s and the screenplay is by former LA cop Will Beall.  The crime drama is one of the higher-profile pics currently set up at Warner Bros. and Deadline says the role of the charismatic Cohen, a former boxer who became an associate of legendary gangsters Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel, could be as memorable as Robert De Niro’s turn as Al Capone in The Untouchables.

And Capone may also be getting his own film at Warner Bros.  Hit the jump for details on the Capone biopic, Cicero.

Ben Affleck is quickly becoming a Warner Brothers favorite.  With The Town (which Warner Bros. distributed) garnering approximately $50 million at the box office as of last weekend and with it enjoying even greater critical success (currently rocking a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes), the studio has now offered Affleck the director’s chair for the L.A. crime drama Tales from the Gangster Squad.  The script, penned by Castle writer and former L.A. cop Will Beall, tells the story of an off-the-record gang of LAPD officers who attempt to force legendary gangster Micky Cohen out of town in the late 1940s.  The script draws substantially from the 2008 series of articles, also entitled Tales from the Gangster Squad, written by Los Angeles Times reporter Paul Lieberman.

As for Affleck, we recently reported that he had discussed directing (along with most every other director in the known universe) The Man of Steel for Warner Brothers but had dropped out of the running.  According to Vulture, the momentum-inclined director is also mulling over the possibility of directing Howard Gordon’s (24) Showtime pilot Homeland as well as a “two-hander at Warner Bros. that might star his old pal Matt Damon.”