Justice League Dark is a project that's been in the works for several years at Warner Bros., with the latest iteration overseen by J.J. Abrams and seemingly encompassing a number of solo outings as well as an eventual team-up. It sounds like all of that will play out on HBO Max, though filmmaker Guillermo del Toro was once developing a big screen debut for the supernatural heroes.
During a recent conversation with Josh Horowitz, del Toro opened up on his original plans for the team, revealing some of the characters he intended to include as part of the roster.
"I took a little bit of the opening of the Alan Moore Constantine. And I took the dynamics between [Abby Arcane] and Swamp Thing, and I took the sort of revelatory moments when Deadman gets into a body, how he would experience the consciousness of that being," the Hellboy director explains. "And one of my all time’s favourites is the demon Etrigan. I love that character."
"Zatanna is really, for me, another character that is really effortlessly powerful and interesting," del Toro continued. "Trying to mix that with Klarion the Witch Boy...I was [always] a DC guy."
It's hard to shake the feeling we may have missed out on something special with del Toro's Justice League Dark, though there was also a time the filmmaker was developing a Hulk TV series for Marvel. That never came to be, either, and we've yet to see the prolific director make his presence felt in the Marvel or DC Universes (there must be something horror-related he can helm for either company).
Check out del Toro's comments in full in the video below: