Filmmaker James Mangold has tackled many genres, whether it's biopics like Ford v Ferrari and his latest film A Different Man or action blockbusters Logan and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
As well as a Star Wars movie exploring the origin of the Jedi set 25,000 years in the past, Mangold has been tapped by DC Studios to take the helm of Swamp Thing. The character has starred in a short-lived TV series but this would mark a big screen return for a character who fits well into the latter part of James Gunn's "Gods and Monsters" slate.
Talking to MovieWeb, Mangold addressed how he plans to address the DCU movie.
"With Bob [Dylan] you have known quantities, yes, but there are ways to interpret them," he started. "With other kinds of IP, it gets to a religious level. Swamp Thing at DC, it's just a matter of - do we find a way on the page to say something original?"
"While I'm sure DC views Swamp Thing as a franchise, I would be viewing it as a very simple, clean, Gothic horror movie about this man/monster," Mangold continued. "Just doing my own thing with this, just a standalone."
That sounds similar to Clayface, for example, and we can't imagine Gunn will have an issue with Swamp Thing being a standalone tale (plus, he can always use Mangold's movie as a launching platform for projects he won't be involved with; Justice League Dark immediately springs to mind).
"I've been afforded the chance [to work] in different genres, because people will finance it. If I was just a horror director and people only wanted to pay for my horror movies, that would be a different problem," the director later acknowledged. "But part of the joy is that you learn a lot when you are changing genres or the vernacular in some of the way you communicate in your art."
"I've learned a lot, whether it's making an action film, or whether it's making a Western and bringing those energies to a kind of superhero film or Marvel film. You not only learn things making one genre, but then you learn how to carry over lessons from that genre into another one that you might not expect," Mangold concluded.
Swamp Thing will investigate the dark origins of its title character. A release date hasn't been announced by DC Studios and it's unclear whether Mangold plans to start work on this or Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi first.