Guillermo del Toro gives the latest on ‘Justice League Dark’
The 'Pacific Rim' director’s supernatural DC team-up may hit the big screen before the classic ‘Justice League’
Neck-deep in promotion for what promises to be his biggest film yet, 'Pacific Rim,' director Guillermo del Toro has given the update on one of the many projects on the busy filmmaker's plate: an adaptation of 'Justice League Dark,' the team-up comic featuring the spookiest characters from the DC stable.
Del Toro tells Collider, "Justice League Dark is very active…I'm doing my revisions on my sort of Bible, on my story for the film," before an as-yet unannounced screenwriter, whom del Toro insists is a big name, will come in to write the script in full based on this outline.
Del Toro goes on, "I can tell you it's the writing project I've enjoyed the most in English. 'Devil's Backbone' and 'Pan's Labyrinth' are in Spanish, but of all my writing and screenplays, this was so much fun because it was character. It was a pretty easy plot, but the character interaction, Swamp Thing with Deadman and Demon, it's so joyful for me to write that. Constantine is such a great character, so dry. I think it could be a great movie."
With its balance of supeheroics and the supernatural, 'Justice League Dark' would seem ideally suited to del Toro, a noted connoisseur of both comic books and the macabre. His filmography to date includes three of the finest comic book films of the 2000s, all of which are heavy on horror elements: 2002's 'Blade II,' 2004's 'Hellboy' and 2008's 'Hellboy II: the Golden Army.'
Earlier this year when the project was first announced, del Toro stated that "Constantine is our lead… the guy who leads us in and out of the plot. We have Swamp Thing, Etrigan, we have Zatanna, we have the Floronic Man. We have stuff that those who love the darker side of the DC Universe are going to appreciate, and we're trying to be true to the origins of the characters."
[Related: Justice League Dark could feature Superman]
Del Toro has also insisted this incarnation of John Constantine will not be anything like the representation of the occult detective in Francis Lawrence's divisive 2005 movie, starring a badly miscast Keanu Reeves. Given that the original character, as created by legendary comic writer Alan Moore, is blonde and British, this has perhaps inevitably lead to some speculation that a potential John Constantine could be Charlie Hunnam, the leading man of 'Pacific Rim,' who is also set to star in del Toro's next film, haunted house movie 'Crimson Peak.'
Either way, as 'Crimson Peak' is set to roll next, and del Toro is notorious for juggling numerous projects at once, who's to say when 'Justice League Dark' will arrive - but at the rate things are going, we may well see it before we see the original 'Justice League' on the big screen. In any case, del Toro is the ideal candidate to take the project on - and if it all goes to plan, it might just ease the disappointment of there still being no 'Hellboy 3,' which del Toro also stated this week looks "very unlikely." (Sigh...)
. Yall support pacific rim so we can get these movies!
so i'll pass on this turd
