Guillermo del Toro has many unrealized projects. Fortunately “Frankenstein”, which he had been trying to make for years, is no longer part of it, but “Justice League Dark” is part of it. The film was announced in 2012 with the working title “Heaven Sent”, but del Toro left him in 2015. Currently it looks like del Toro is content to leave ‘Justice League Dark’ in the past.
But let’s go back: what East Justice League Dark? Basically, it’s a team combining every important magical or supernatural character in the DC Universe, including Zatanna, John Constantine, Swamp Thing, Deadman, and Etrigan the Demon, among others. Since Del Toro had already combined the supernatural and superheroes with his “Hellboy” films, he would have been perfect for “Justice League Dark.”
Even though it wasn’t supposed to happen, del Toro was candid in sharing what he had planned — which only adds to the bittersweetness. Recently, on the “Happy Sad Confused” Podcast hosted by Josh Horowitz, the filmmaker confirmed that the lead of the ensemble would have been Constantine, the cynical, chain-smoking exorcist. Swamp Thing – not just a living plant but an avatar of all plant life on Earth, “The Green” – would also have played a major role, while one of Swamp Thing’s enemies, the Floronic Man, was to appear as a villain.
While del Toro said he hadn’t gotten far enough into production to begin casting for Justice League Dark, he had frequent collaborator Doug Jones in mind for Deadman (the withering ghost of murdered acrobat Boston Brand). Jones typically plays prosthetic-animated characters in Del Toro’s films, such as the Faun and the Pale Man in “Pan’s Labyrinth”.
“Physically, I could wear the costume [for Deadman] and I know [Jones’] manners and all that,” del Toro explained. Most excitingly, he revealed a huge cameo, his storyline included: Batman.
Batman would have appeared in Guillermo del Toro’s Justice League Dark
Now, Guillermo del Toro’s “Justice League Dark” was announced shortly before the creation of the DC Extended Universe. Chances are the movie didn’t happen because it couldn’t fit in at Warner Bros. bigger plans for DC. But if it had come to fruition, he likely would have been integrated into this Zack Snyder-led universe – meaning the Batman who appeared in del Toro’s film would likely have been Ben Affleck.
In “Happy Sad Confused,” del Toro explained how the Dark Knight would appear: “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.”
This is not unprecedented. Batman appeared in the 2017 animated film “Justice League Dark” – cynical marketing even put him front and center on the poster. (See above.) But Batman has ties to many members of the JLD. He made a few appearances in Alan Moore’s “Saga of the Swamp Thing”, he is an acquaintance of Zatanna (who even starred in an underrated episode of ‘Batman: The Animated Series’), Etrigan’s human self, Jason Blood, lives in Gotham City and sometimes teams up with Batman, etc.
Even though Del Toro likely would have been limited in how much he could use Batman, it would have been amazing to see him take a stab at the Dark Knight. Batman is a gothic superhero and an outsider who stays in the shadows, so he’s not far from Del Toro’s milieu either. I can only dream of Del Toro adapting “Batman: Dark Knight, Dark City” by Peter Milligan and Kieron Dwyer where Batman discovers a demonic secret hidden beneath Gotham.
So Batman, Constantine, Swamp Thing and Deadman were locked in for Del Toro’s “Justice League Dark.” Who else?
Guillermo del Toro’s Justice League Dark removed from Jack Kirby and Alan Moore
In a 2013 interview with IGNGuillermo del Toro mentioned wanting to use Etrigan, Zatanna and her father Zatara, and the Specter (a real angel of vengeance) in “Justice League Dark” (then called “Dark Universe”). During an appearance in 2021 in “Happy Sad Confused”, del Toro called Zatanna an “effortlessly powerful” character and said that Etrigan the Demon is “one of [his] all-time favorites. »
Created by Jack Kirby, Etrigan is a demon bonded to the mortal Jason Blood by the wizard Merlin. He speaks mostly in rhyme, including the incantation that Blood says to transform: “Gone, gone, the form of man. Rise demon, Etrigan!” Oddly enough, Etrigan is not far removed in his concept of a studio note that Del Toro fought on “Hellboy”, that is, Ron Perlman’s hero should be a human who turns into a demon and vice versa. Speaking on “Happy Sad Confused”, del Toro indicated that he also wanted to include one of Etrigan’s enemies, Klarion the Sorcerer.
There was another key ingredient in his screenplay: romance, because del Toro looked to Alan Moore’s “Swamp Thing,” particularly that book’s love story “Beauty and the Beast” between Swamp Thing and his beloved Abby Arcane. I would say that “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” is Del Toro merging his love for Hellboy and Swamp Thing — del Toro takes Mike Mignola’s Hellboy, a tough-guy paranormal investigator, keeps it gothic and adds a romance between Hellboy (Perlman) and Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) that evokes Swamp Thing and Abby. The misanthropic elf prince Nuada (Luke Goss) also resembles the plant supremacist Floronic Man.
DC Studios has a ‘Swamp Thing’ movie in development but it will never live up to our imagination of what Del Toro’s “Justice League Dark” could have been.
