Justice Con/April 17, 2021

**April 17, 2021** was the second day of the 2021 Justice Con convention, but the first big day of events.

## Events

### "Anyone Can Cosplay" A Discussion on Cosplay Accuracy and Acceptance

Cole from The Nerd Queens hosted Colleen Cosplay, KayKosplay, Lis Wonder, and Hijabi Hooligan in a discussion about their experiences choosing characters to cosplay, creating costumes, and visiting conventions.

### Spotlight on Gonzalo Guastavino

Ohiodavee hosted this conversation with Gonzalo Guastavino (WhyNotStuff), who did the copyright-safe art for Justice Con 2021. They talked about the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut movement and Guastavino's art.

### Spotlight on Ray Porter

For this spotlight segment, Sheraz Farooqi talked with Ray Porter about Porter's life and work on *Zack Snyder's Justice League*. Porter comes from a family of actors and now lives in Pasadena, as Snyder does. Porter was cast as Darkseid as a result of being one of the script-reader actors for the film during the early process of putting together the movie with Snyder and Chris Terrio. Porter talked about his experiences between his character's removal from *Justice League*, the speculation about who was portraying the character when rumors grew that Darkseid was cut from the film, to finally being allowed to reveal his role to the world alongside the official announcement of *Zack Snyder's Justice League*.

### Spotlight on Ray Fisher

Chris Wong-Swenson (Ping Pong Flix) hosted Ray Fisher and they talked about Fisher's casting in *Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice*, his role being cut down for *Justice League*, and finally the full Cyborg and Stone-family arc being restored in *Zack Snyder's Justice League*. The conversation included a little about Fisher's would-be role in *The Flash* and potential Cyborg movie ideas. Fisher mentioned he'd love to work with Zack Snyder again in any capacity, even just a random zombie. Enosh from Poindexter Lounge joined to aske questions from the community. Fisher mentioned knowing both Ray Porter and Wayne T. Carr from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

### Spotlight on Joe Manganiello

Dave Pena hosted the spotlight on Joe Manganiello. They started by talking about Manganiello's most recent movie at the time, *Shoplifters of the World* and Metallica, both Pena and Manganiello being fans of the band. The conversation moved into Manganiello's *Zack Snyder's Justice League* character, Deathstroke, which Ben Affleck had initially called Manganiello about doing first as a one-day shoot, then as six more months of filming the next year for Affleck's *The Batman*. Affleck leaked the shot from the one-day shoot, which was Manganiello in costume, then turned his phone off and let the internet take over. The project was eventually canceled, but the studio was impressed with Manganiello's research into the character and began moving forward with a 15-page treatment Manganiello had written for a Deathstroke origin film. This film was also later canceled. They talked a bit about working with David Ayer on *Sabotage* before Wondermeg and Stephen Colbert joined to ask fan questions. Notably, it was important to Manganiello that Deathstroke was grounded in the more real-world setting of the DC Extended Universe (when compared with DC cartoons), and so Deathstroke used real-world weapons and didn't have the superpowers he has in the comics.

### Spotlight on Harry J. Lennix

Hosted by Scott McClellan on April 17, 2021, Scott interviewed Harry Lennix about his past and being cast as General Swanwick in *Man of Steel*. They talked about Lennix's life as a school teacher in his early years and his intention to return to something similar when it became difficult to find acting roles prior to revitalizing the Superman franchise. Lennix was brought in early in production to help cast the other major roles, such as Henry Cavill as Superman and Amy Adams as Lois Lane. Snyder had called Lennix's agent looking specifically for Lennix to take up this position on the team, and to portray a character that, at the time, would be determined later. They also talked about Lennix's time filming *Zack Snyder's Justice League*, which was done remotely while Lennix was in New York, and which he said was the best project of his professional career. The culmination of this character's past appearances leading into his becoming a superhero was something he'd never thought would happen for him as an actor. Lennix mentioned trying out for *Dawn of the Dead* against Tony Todd and Ving Rhames (losing out to Rhames). It was remembering his voice from that time that made Zack Snyder think of Lennix for the role of Boorman in *Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas*.

### Spotlight on Patrick Tatopoulos

Enosh from Poindexter Lounge hosted the Patrick Tatopoulos spolight segment. Tatopoulos talked about what it is production designers do, specifically as the production designer for *Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice*. They're there at the earliest stages reviewing concept art and helping put together everything that will be needed to set up the shoot. They talked about the development of the *Batmobile* and past versions of Batman's iconic car. They moved on to talk about creating sets, and how important it is for those locations to feel like they represent the people who would have set them up within the universe, such as Barry Allen (Ezra Miller)'s apartment being a reflection of who he is. Tiff-Tastic joined to ask questions from the viewers.

### Deep Dive into *Zack Snyder's Justice League* with Zack Snyder

Wondermeg and The Nerd Queens hosted Zack Snyder. They talked about Green Lantern appearances in *Zack Snyder's Justice League*, both actual and potential, including Wayne T. Carr as John Stewart and a to-be-determined voice actor as Kilowog. Both would have been present in the final scene (later replaced with Harry Lennix's Martian Manhunter due to WB mandates against using John Stewart). Snyder also briefly mentioned that he had recently been approached about voicing himself in an animated cartoon, not mentioning *Teen Titans Go!* episode "365!", which is what this appearance would later turn out to be. He was asked about potentially using the "Volume" technology in future films and noted that he'd done some test filming with his son, Eli Snyder, in Australia, and would be interested in using it in the future. They talked about casting Granny Goodness, a character who appears purely in CG in *Zack Snyder's Justice League*, and Zack noted that Jojo Aguilar, who drew the concept art for the character, based her on his aunt, which is the appearance they ended up using in the film. Casting possibilities mentioned included Kim Rhodes, Judi Dench, and Helen Mirran.

Chris Terrio joined and the conversation continued. They talked about previous name options for *Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice*, one Zack liked being *Son of Sun and Knight of Night*. They talked a bit about storytelling, focusing on *Batman v Superman* and *Zack Snyder's Justice League*, how they fought with Warner Bros. to make them happen, and how the pieces fit together between the two movies. They considered the new hashtag that had replaced #ReleaseTheSnyderCut: #RestoreTheSnyderVerse. While it seemed impossible that anything more could come of it, Snyder believed the passion behind it alone was accomplishment enough.

### Spotlight on Jay Oliva

Tim Yoko hosted the spotlight on Jay Oliva, which was twice the length of the other segments. They talked about Jay's animation studio, Lex + Otis and how it was named. Since it was on Lexington St., Jay took the "Lex" like a nod to Lex Luthor, then looked down and saw the word "Otis" on the floor of the elevator, so, in a snap decision, put them together when first asked what his studio was called. They continued by talking about Oliva's history with storyboarding and animation, including his dream of working with Bruce Timm, which he evntually did. He was connected to Zack Snyder for *Man of Steel* through contacts he made doing freelance work and storyboarded the big fight scenes. Notably, Snyder had already storyboarded the Krypton scenes before Oliva joined the project. Oliva returned to work on the sequel, *Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice*, and was also brought in to storyboard a bit of *Wonder Woman* and *Justice League*/*Zack Snyder's Justice League* while simultaneously beginning work on *The Flash* and *The Batman* within the DC Extended Universe. Zack Snyder, Rick Famuyiwa, and Ben Affleck were all talking about how thier movies would connect together and Oliva was doing storyboards for all three. Oliva mentioned being a big fan of the way Snyder pulled DC characters from so many different sources, so many different versions of the characters together instead of just using one comic line, which caused confusion among fans of specific comics who weren't as familiar with other comics, but as someone who worked with so many versions of these characters, he was able to appreciate all of it.

Nana and Cole from The Nerd Queens joined to ask fan questions. *Twilight of the Gods* was brought up and Oliva could only say that casting was complete and that they were in preproduction.

## References

1. ↑ Cole. "Anyone Can Cosplay". Justice Con. Retrieved on April 17, 2021.
2. ↑ Ohiodavee. "Spotlight on Gonzalo Guastavino". Justice Con. Retrieved on April 17, 2021.
3. ↑ Sheraz Farooqi. "Spotlight on Ray Porter". Justice Con. Retrieved on April 17, 2021.
4. ↑ Chris Wong-Swenson. "Spotlight on Ray Fisher". Justice Con. Retrieved on April 17, 2021.
5. ↑ Dave Pena. "Spotlight on Joe Manganiello". Justice Con. Retrieved on April 17, 2021.
6. ↑ Scott McClellan. "Spotlight on Harry J. Lennix". Justice Con. Retrieved on April 17, 2021.
7. ↑ Enosh. "Spotlight on Patrick Tatopoulos". Justice Con. Retrieved on April 17, 2021.
8. ↑ Wondermeg & The Nerd Queens. "Deep Dive into *Zack Snyder's Justice League* with Zack Snyder". Justice Con. Retrieved on April 17, 2021.
9. ↑ Tim Yoko. "Spotlight on Jay Oliva". Justice Con. Retrieved on April 17, 2021.