One of the more baffling Hollywood stories during the past year has been the rise and fall of Warner Bros.' proposed "Justice League" movie. Uniting fabled DC Comic heroes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash and Green Lantern, the project was fast-tracked last summer with acclaimed director George Miller trying to put the difficult pieces together. Rumors flew about who was playing each hero, with the most notable casting choices being Adam Brody as the Flash and rapper-turned-actor Common as Green Lantern. And then, after too many problems to account here, the project went into limbo.The actors were then quietly released from their contracts after never having been officially announced.

Earlier this week I spent some time on the Vancouver, B.C., set of the new thriller "Jennifer's Body," in which Brody plays against type as a rock singer with bad intentions. During a lengthy interview with the press, I asked the actor whether it was true he was signed to play the Scarlet Speedster.

"I was. I dunno what's going on with it." And then in a jokingly blunt fashion, Brody returns the volley, asking, "Do you know?"

That brings a laugh from the assembled press, but trying to dig deeper, I ask Brody whether he'd experienced similar circumstances in his career. It turns out he'd gone through two and a half years of contractual limbo on an MTV show before he landed his career-making role on "The O.C."

"I think every actor is no stranger to being on a weird contract and waiting for your show to get picked up," Brody says. "So, I wasn't a stranger to it, but it was an interesting process."

A longtime comic-book fan, Brody then volunteers, "It was funny how it went down. I was so excited. I was like, 'I got the part! This is great! Now they are going to take me down to the secret bunker in Warner Bros. It's going to be so official.' And it wasn't. It wasn't official. Stuff leaked out. We were kind of [forced to say stuff like], 'I don't really know' [to the press]. And I went to Australia for a month."

Ahem, Australia? Now this was news. Not only had the cast been chosen, they'd spent four weeks in Miller's native Australia conducting a superhero boot camp the actor describes as "superfun."

"We did like a ... [expletive]," Brody says pondering whether to divulge more. After a slight pause, he continues, "I would be really [remiss] to talk about any of this, except nobody debriefed me. Nobody said I couldn't. I keep waiting. 'We can just take our scripts wherever?' 'You don't want to keep these in the safe?'"

Brody recalls, "[It was] really surreal because you're sitting around a round table and everyone was like, 'Well, Batman wouldn't say that.' And someone would be like, 'Yeah, but the thing about Superman is ... ' It was so fun. And then George Miller, he has such respect for actors, probably more than I do. So, you've got this $200 million action picture, but then you've got this really true artist. So, you're doing like this superhero theater camp. I had a blast."

Despite all that prep work, Brody knew the movie had big hurdles to overcome, admitting, "I was always really skeptical."

Sadly, he wasn't the only one.

Next column: Jennifer Hudson on her new album and joining the cast of "Sex and the City"; Diablo Cody goes from the comedy of "Juno" to the horror of "Jennifer's Body"; and more.

Send your thoughts and comments to buzz@microsoft.com. See you in four.

Sound off: Comment on this story | Also: Features archive

Next: Parker Brings 'Sex'-y Back