James Mangold in Talks to Tackle ‘Swamp Thing’ Movie for James Gunn, Peter Safran’s DC Studios - Hollywood Reporter

James Mangold whitethorn beryllium trading successful his whip for a travel to swamp country.

Mangold, who has Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny hitting theaters successful May, is successful aboriginal talks to beryllium 1 of the archetypal writer-directors to articulation James Gunn and Peter Safran’s roster of filmmakers astatine DC Studios.

Mangold is successful discussions with the Warner Bros. limb to instrumentality connected the diagnostic adaptation of Swamp Thing, the supernatural horror-based leader who is simply a focal constituent successful the archetypal section of DC Studios’ slate.

Gunn and Safran unveiled their slate Tuesday. Swamp Thing was the past of the 10 projects talked astir and was tonally the darkest. The executives didn’t notation Mangold astatine the clip arsenic sources accidental that talks are inactive successful the aboriginal stages.

Still, Mangold connected Tuesday nighttime tweeted a elemental (but moody and poetic) representation of Swamp Thing, drawn by co-creator Bernie Wrightson. Gunn retweeted the post, suggesting that the talks were heading successful a hopeful direction.

Mangold is said to beryllium a monolithic instrumentality of the quality and the stories. According to sources, helium approached Gunn and Safran with his ideas. Swamp Thing would beryllium a fewer years away, however, and Mangold’s adjacent task aft Dial of Destiny volition beryllium a Bob Dylan biopic for Paramount.

Swamp Thing was created by writer Len Wein and fearfulness creator Wrightson, archetypal appearing successful a standalone communicative successful 1971’s House of Secret No. 92. The quality proved fashionable capable that helium got his ain publication soon aft though it was short-lived

The quality achieved his highest successful the 1980s during a seminal tally written by Alan Moore and drawn by John Totleben and Stephen R. Bissette. The publication was connected the foreground of a burgeoning and envelope-pushing comic titles that included Moore’s The Watchmen, Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, Art Spiegelman’s Maus, and different works that brought caller vigor into comics.

It was during this tally that Swamp Thing evolved from a elemental fearfulness comic into 1 with a heavy elemental mythology featuring concepts specified arsenic the Parliament of Trees and tackling analyzable themes of beingness and death. The tally besides introduced different supernatural hero, John Constantine, and its much big quality led to the instauration of the mature readers comics imprint, Vertigo.

Swamp Thing has seen respective comics runs since, with the quality being folded backmost into the due DC Universe and helium was a portion of Justice League Dark, DC’s supergroup of its supernatural characters.

The quality archetypal appeared connected the big-screen successful 1982 successful a diagnostic directed by fearfulness maestro Wes Craven and astir precocious successful a short-lived series showrun by Gary Dauberman and Mark Verheiden that streamed connected the now-defunct DC Universe platform.

At Tuesday’s presentation, Gunn and Safran said the caller movie “investigates the acheronian origins of Swamp Thing.” And portion calling it a “horrific film,” the quality would inactive beryllium interacting with different DC characters, with the tonal clash a cardinal allure of immoderate mash-up.  

Mangold co-wrote Dial of Destiny, which is the archetypal Indiana Jones movie not to beryllium directed by Steven Spielberg and volition beryllium released June 30. Before that, helium directed Oscar-winning racing play Ford v Ferrari and co-wrote and directed the critically acclaimed X-Men-centric movie, Logan.

Mangold is repped by WME, Entertainment 360, and Sloane Offer.