Posted in: Justice League Dark, Max, Movies, TV, Warner Bros | Tagged: guillermo del toro, justice league dark

Guillermo del Toro On The Canceled Justice League Dark Film

Guillermo del Toro has revealed some details about the canceled Justice League Dark film, including who would have been the lead and a potential Batman cameo.

When the first era of the DC Universe kicked off with Man of Steel, what followed were many messy years of movies that made it to the big screen and even more that got announced and canceled with little to no movement. It was nearly a running joke the number of announced DC projects that were floating around, supposedly in varying levels of development, that never came to pass. One of those films was Justice League Dark from director Guillermo del Toro. The film was confirmed by del Toro in January 2013, which meant it pre-dated even the DC Cinematic Universe, and there were talks about bringing that film into the fold when Man of Steel was released. From there, things meandered for over a decade. In 2014, del Toro confirmed that the script was complete and there was a little movement here and there through 2017, when it was officially titled Justice League Dark at Comic-Con.

However, the pandemic era was not kind to this, and the rest of the DC Universe and the film eventually fell not long after James Gunn and Peter Safran were announced as the co-chairs and co-CEOs of DC Studios. Some of the characters that were often cited as part of the Justice League Dark lineup were featured elsewhere, such as the Swamp Thing movie that would be directed by James Mangold and the long-awaited Constantine sequel starring Keanu Reeves. So it sounds like things are well and truly dead with Justice League Dark, but there was a completed script, and del Toro is doing press for Frankenstein. He was recently on the Happy Sad Confused podcast (via GamesRadar+) and revealed that John Constantine, our favorite bisexual disaster, would have been the lead, but also teased a cameo from another big DC hero and revealed who the villain would have been.

"It was John Constantine, and the plot made absolute sense, perfect sense," del Toro revealed. "I loved that screenplay. I was in love with that screenplay. I thought it brought everybody in effortlessly, you know. … There was a moment where Batman came in briefly. They said, 'We need a plane,' and he said, 'I know a friend of mine has a plane.' and then you were in Bruce Wayne's office. You know I would have loved to have done that, but now I wouldn't, you know. … We had the Floronic Man was one of the villains, and it was really great because Swamp Thing was very fleshed out."

Del Toro also revealed that he wanted to bring in his frequent collaborator Doug Jones as Deadman, "Physically, I could do the suit, and I know his mannerisms and all that." There was a time when del Toro seemed to detach a bit from Justice League Dark and even handed the directing duties over to Doug Liman in August 2016, but that didn't last long. What we do know is that a completed and revised script is out there somewhere and Gunn and Safran seem more than willing to let creators play in their own separate DC Universe corners [see: Matt Reeves] so while this project is very much not in any level of development, a completed Justice League Dark script by Guillermo del Toro has got to be tempting for someone to take a stab at.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!