Movies

Guillermo Del Toro Shares Details About His Scrapped Justice League Dark Movie

Justice League Dark Warner Bros. Animation
By Jeremy Mathai/

For fans of filmmaker Guillermo del Toro and his rather niche sensibilities (the glorious kaiju-wrestling madness of "Pacific Rim" excepted, at least), nothing came as a bigger or more welcome surprise than to see him successfully cross over into the mainstream when the excellent "The Shape of Water" won Best Picture at the 2018 Academy Awards. Of course, the irony of considering that film as one of his more accessible projects becomes clear with just one glance at the premise — a woman falling madly in love with a fish-man. In vintage del Toro fashion, however, there is far more to this fairy tale than might initially meet the eye. His latest film, "Nightmare Alley," serves as a return to a darker and more hard-edged storytelling mode (and one with a neat connection to an earlier film of his, as well), but while taking up promotional duties for this movie, del Toro took a trip down memory lane to one of the most intriguing productions he's ever been attached to.

Sadly, you could construct another separate filmography altogether out of the projects that filmmaker Guillermo del Toro didn't get to bring to the finish line. In fact, he has an entire Wikipedia entry dedicated to that topic. Of the many, many movies and shows that may never end up seeing the light of day, "Justice League Dark" stands apart as one that best exemplifies a perfect match between filmmaker and material. Though he officially parted ways back in 2015, many remain interested about what he may have had up his sleeves for his take on the DC property. Thankfully, del Toro is opening up a little more about how his plans would have taken shape.

Guillermo del Toro's Justice League Dark

Justice League Dark DC Comics

Many directors have tried and failed to turn a big screen adaptation of "Justice League Dark" into reality. After del Toro moved on, Doug Liman stepped up to the plate before he, too, ultimately left the project in 2017. (At the very least, you can check out the gnarly concept art for Liman's Swamp Thing here.) Last we heard, J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot production company had become the latest hopeful to attempt both a television series and a movie. Yet despite all that, we simply can't get over the might-have-been of the alternate universe where del Toro managed to helm "Justice League Dark" with little to no studio interference. 

At this point, nothing may match the power of our imaginations, but del Toro himself is helpfully adding more fuel to the fire after joining Josh Horowitz's "Happy Sad Confused" podcast. You can check out a clip of the video interview posted on Twitter below.

In response to a question about what the film was going to be, del Toro is immediately forthcoming about his ideas. Something tells us we're not the only ones who've daydreamed about it:

"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. And one of my all time favorites is the demon Etrigan. I love that character. You know, so you try to put them together ... Zatanna is really, for me, another character that is really effortlessly powerful and interesting. Trying to mix that with Klarion the Witch Boy ... I was a DC guy."

Let nobody ever accuse Guillermo del Toro for being anything less than 100% passionate and knowledgeable about his interests! After directing both "Hellboy" and "Hellboy II" into beloved cult-classic territory, fans have been eager to see del Toro return to the comic book realm. These tidbits will have to suffice for now but, in the meantime, "Nightmare Alley" is currently playing in theaters.

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