DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn promised that Creature Commandos would be the first of many DCU-based animated projects, and we may now know which character the next one will focus on.
According to Nexus Point News, an animated series centred around Deadman is in the early stages of development, though the site notes that no writers or scripts are currently in place and the show has yet to receive an official green light.
This wouldn't be the first time Deadman appeared in animated form, and the supernatural hero almost made his live-action debut on a couple of occasions. A CW series was in the works way back in 2011 before being shelved, and the character would have been part of the Justice League Dark roster in M3GAN director Gerard Johnstone's now defunct movie along with Swamp Thing, Constantine, and Zatanna.
"There was a lot of the conversations and jostling I had with the guys," the filmmaker told Screen Rant in a recent interview, "because they were like, 'Constantine's the main character.' I was like, 'No, Constantine's kind of the coolest character. But Zatanna is really the main character.' Because she's discovering her magical powers for the first time. But it was fun, man. The characters all went to hell to get Zatanna's dad."
Johnstone's script was only about halfway complete when he got word that the studio had decided not to move forward with the project.
"It was just a tough time for DC, I think. It was just like Justice League came out, didn't do what they wanted it to do. Suicide Squad didn't do what they wanted to do. And so I was just told that they don't want to spend money on another new movie with a bunch of characters no one's heard of, and I understand that. It was a shame."
Introduced in the pages of Strange Adventures back in the '60s, Boston Brand was a circus trapeze artist with the stage-named Deadman who was murdered during a performance by a mysterious assailant known as the Hook. Brand's spirit was then given the power to possess any living being by the Hindu god Rama Kushna, and he set about attempting to solve the mystery of his murder and bring his killer to justice.
Assuming this project comes to fruition, whoever ends up voicing Deadman will likely play the character in live-action if he ever does make the jump to the big screen.