Yesterday, after months of speculation, James Gunn and Peter Safran – now the official big kahunas behind WB’s relaunch of the DC cinematic universe – shared their plans for the next few years’ worth of releases: a new Superman movie, a new Batman movie (now with 100% more Robin), an animated series by the name of Creature Commandos, a Wonder Woman spin-off set in Themyscira … and, perhaps most excitingly to us horror nerds at FANGORIA, a brand-new Swamp Thing movie.
Our report on the matter (which you can read here) was fairly limited in terms of details. Beyond specifically referring to the project as a horror movie and the implication that the film would close out the first chapter of Gunn and Safran’s multi-year DC plan, there wasn’t much else to go on.
This is no longer the case! According to a new report over at THR, James Mangold (Logan, the forthcoming Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny) is in talks to helm the new Swamp Thing … which certainly seemed to be what Mangold was getting at when he tweeted this out last night:
— Mangold (@mang0ld) February 1, 2023
From where we’re standing, Mangold is a very interesting choice for this project. The man’s got all manner of genre experience (check out 2003’s Identity to see Mangold’s horror/thriller chops in action), knows his way around a sizable budget, and has only grown more assured in delivering spectacle with each new film he makes. He probably wouldn’t have been the first name we’d conjure as a possible director for Swamp Thing, but then, that’s why we have a James Gunn and a Peter Safran.
Nothing further to report at this time and we expect it’ll be a minute before anything major happens with this one, but do stay tuned for further Swamp Thing updates as they roll in. We are very curious about this one.
