Earlier this year, director Doug Liman signed on to direct then quickly departed the ‘Justice League Dark’ movie. For a moment, it seemed as if Warner Bros. was eyeing Andres Muschietti, the director of the upcoming horror adaptation ‘It’ to take over. It’s possible that Muschietti is too busy with ‘It’ (there’s a second movie to come) to take on another franchise. But now two new names have emerged as frontrunners, Daniel Espinosa and Gerard Johnstone.
Espinosa directed this year’s under-performing science fiction horror movie ‘Life’ starring Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal. He also directed Reynolds in the action thriller ‘Safe House’.
New Zealander Gerard Johnstone only has one film credit to his name, ‘Housebound’. But it happens to fit the ‘Justice League Dark’ mood, being a horror/comedy. Other than that, Johnstone has worked strictly for television in his native country. He also directed the pilot for the Australian show ‘The Legend of Monkey’ based on a Chinese fable, which will be released next year and features a team of warriors, so that could be good practice for an ensemble film like this.
Back in 2012, Guillermo del Toro was reportedly developing a similar film, under the name ‘Dark Universe’ which would have featured Swamp Thing, John Constantine, The Spectre, Deadman, Zatanna and Zatara. Later, Madame Xanadu’s name popped up in the mix. This was before Warner Bros. had decided to move forward with a shared universe under the banner of the DC Extended Universe. del Toro always has multiple projects in various stages of development, so when DC announced their plans, he decided to walk away from the project due to scheduling.
del Toro reportedly revised his script at least three times but since they were penned before the launch of the DCEU, it may no longer work. It’s also likely that a new director will want to have some creative input to the story.
The first villain the ‘Justice League Dark’ faced in their comic book series was The Enchantress, who was played by Cara Delevingne in ‘Suicide Squad’, so her character could be a way to introduce the other magic users from the comics to the movie universe.
Earlier this year, a ‘Justice League Dark’ R-rated animated movie was released on home video, featuring Batman, Black Orchid, John Constantine, Deadman, Etrigan the Demon/Jason Blood, Swamp Thing, and Zatanna plus villains Destiny (originally Dr. Destiny in the comics), Felix Faust and the Demons Three. The source comic book has included many additional members, any of whom could find their way into the film version.
Since there is no director signed on for the live action film, it most likely won’t go into production for a couple of years, so there’s no telling when it will actually hit theaters.
Who do you think should direct the live action film? Would either Espinosa or Johnstone be a good fit?
Source: Comic Book Movie
