dc - Why aren't Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern in Justice League (2017) movie?

I can't imagine Justice League without Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern. My emotions are attached with this:

But, I am getting this:

Why did producers choose to not include Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern (they were also part of original seven members of Justice League in comics) in the movie?

Answer

Green Lantern

GL's non-presence was discussed with the studio's bigwigs (Greg Silverman, president of creative development Warner Bros and DC producer Charles Roven) in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. They claim that it's down to three reasons;

• That Green Lantern is too important a character to simply turn up in an ensemble film.


• That they already have something Green Lantern-related in the works (presumably their slated 2020 "Green Lantern corps" movie).


• That introducing even more characters would be confusing for audiences.

“[Green Lantern] is an incredible character. He’s actually multiple incredible characters,” Silverman says. “There’s real opportunity there. We didn’t do a great job on that first Green Lantern movie. This is a character who deserves to be treated in the same way that Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman are being treated now, which is with great reverence. I guess I can say to the Green Lantern fans: if they can be patient with us, I think they’ll be really happy.”

But how patient? Roven says we may not see Hal Jordan, John Stewart, or any incarnation of Green Lantern until Justice League – Part Two. Maybe. “Every beat of the movie is not yet worked out. So there’s the possibility that he may or may not be in Justice League 2,” the producer says. “For now, we felt that we were introducing enough characters that the best possible place we could put Green Lantern is some introduction in Justice League 2, or barring that, a movie after.”

_{^{Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice links the DC Comics movie universe}}

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Martian Manhunter

Senior DC scriptwriter David Goyer spoke about Martian Manhunter not being in the film in a Scriptnotes podcast. He broke it down into four main reasons. It's probably fair to say that if he's speaking openly, that these are prevalent beliefs within the upper echelons of DC's movie team.

• The Martian Manhunter is too much of an unknown with audiences (and that they were happy to licence him to Supergirl for next-to-nothing for precisely that reason).


• That his name is "goofy" and stupid-sounding.


• That he's almost impossible to use in an ensemble film without a long back-story explaining his existence.


• That his back-story is actually kinda dumb.

Martian Manhunter, AKA J'onn J'onzz, is of course the last survivor of an ancient Martian civilization, notable for being one of the cofounders of the Justice League of America. He has not been announced to appear in the upcoming Justice League film however, and based on what Goyer said when asked about the character, it's looking like he likely won't. After first dismissing Martian Manhunter as too obscure to matter, Goyer explained how he can't see making use of the character without removing nearly everything associated with the character. I'll just let his words speak for themselves:

"He can't be fucking called the Martian Manhunter because that's goofy. He can be called Manhunter... The whole deal with Martian Manhunter is he's an alien living amongst us... So he comes down to Earth and decides, unlike Superman who already exists in the world now, that he's just going to be a homicide detective... So instead of using super-powers and mind-reading and like, oh, I could figure out if the President's lying or whatever, he just decides to disguise himself as a human homicide detective. Dare to dream!"

"I would set it up like The Day After Tomorrow. We discover one of those Earth-like planets... So maybe like... we get the DNA code from that planet and then grow him in a petri dish here... He's like in Area 51 or something and we're just basically... doing biopsies on him."

_{^{Goyer's Martian Manhunter Comments Are Why DC Can't Have Nice Things}}