Bad Robot In Talks To Develop ‘Justice League Dark’ TV Shows & Films
Bad Robot is apparently in talks with Warner Bros. to develop a new set of tv shows and films based around DC Comic’s ‘Justice League Dark’ it has been revealed.
According to Deadline, JJ Abrams’ company Bad Robot, who recently signed an exclusive deal with WarnerMedia to create tv shows, films and games, are in discussions with Warner Bros. about bringing characters from ‘Justice League Dark’ to the big and small screen. Whilst there has been no decision yet on who from the JLD roster will appear, Bad Robot’s Head of Motion Pictures Hannah Minghella and Head of Television Ben Stephenson will soon be taking meetings with reps and writers to discuss which characters will get their own projects.
For those of you unfamiliar with ‘Justice League Dark’, the original book was created in 2011 by Peter Milligan, and was a team formed to deal with the more magical and mystical threats within the DC comic book universe. Much like the main Justice League, the list of characters involved changes from story to story, but has included some familiar faces such as Constantine, Swamp Thing, Zatanna, Doctor Fate, Deadman, and even Wonder Woman. There have also been some lesser-known characters such as Frankenstein, I, Vampire’s Andrew Bennett, Madame Xanadu, Detective Chimp, Man-Bat and The Phantom Stranger.
Whilst there aren’t any real details about what this could become, it does open some interesting doors and throws up some intriguing questions, as some of these characters have been on screen in live-action quite recently already.
On tv, we’ve had Matt Ryan as Constantine, who has already jumped from his own show to ‘Legends Of Tomorrow’ – could we see him move again? We’ve also had the brilliant, but sadly cancelled DC Universe ‘Swamp Thing’ series – could this be a way of bringing him back? ‘Wonder Woman’ has, of course, had her own movie, so I wouldn’t expect to see her on TV, but we could maybe see her in a film team-up.
Would Bad Robot want to completely start from scratch, or would they want to tap into some of the existing shows? Do fans want to see a new JLD-verse run separately to the Arrowverse and current DC films, or do we want some cross-pollination?
This is very early days and could amount to nothing, as we have had false starts on ‘Justice League Dark’ before. Guillermo del Toro was attached to direct a big-screen adaptation back in 2012, but it stalled. Doug Liman was then attached in 2016, but that also didn’t go anywhere. We did get an animated feature in 2017, with a voice cast including Jason O’Mara, Matt Ryan, Camilla Luddington, Jerry O’Connell and Rosario Dawson, but nothing more in live-action. Let’s hope Bad Robot can succeed this time around. We’ll bring you more news as we get it.
