Justice League Dark is a team-up concept that DC has only visited the perimeters of, giving us members such as Constantine and Swamp Thing to headline their own shows through the 2010’s but never giving us the full fledged team together on the big screen. We did come close, however, with Guillermo Del Toro’s version all the way back in 2013. It was unfortunately abandoned by 2015 and very few details about the film, tentatively titled Dark Universe, were ever revealed – that is, until very recently.

While speaking with Josh Horowitz about the new Frankenstein series on Netflix, Del Toro put to rest some of the long gestating questions about the movie and filled in fans on a couple juicy details from what we could have gotten, had the film been produced. To start, it has long been speculated that actor Colin Farrell (The Penguin) was being eyed for the main role of John Constantine, but Del Toro quickly shot that one down while at the same time revealing who he had wanted to play a different team member, Deadman:

“No, I was not casting yet. I knew I wanted Doug Jones to be Deadman, only because physically he could do the suit, and I knew his mannerisms. I loved that screenplay. I was in love with [it]. I thought it brought everyone in effortlessly.”

So, while the rumor that Colin Farrell was potentially in the running to play Constantine could neither be fully confirmed nor denied, the director did reveal that he wanted actor Doug Jones to play the character of Deadman. While Jones might be most notably known to comic book fans for his role as the Silver Surfer in the original Fantastic 4 films from the 2000’s, he also had a resume of work already under the belt in Del Toro movies with roles in Hellboy and Hellboy 2, Pan’s Labyrinth, and the Shape of Water. More recently he lent his talents to Star Trek: Discovery as the character of Saru.

Speaking of Deadman, Del Toro also revealed details from one of his favorite scene sequences from the script. Deadman could project himself into the living to take over bodies, and Del Toro had apparently had a chase scene planned that involved the character jumping from body to body:

“The screenplay [was] there. It was a couple of years of development. We never got to the art. It had great set pieces. My favorite one was a chase with Deadman jumping from one body to the next.”

After just recently doing a full rewatch of The Flash series for the CW, I have to say this sounds a lot like the plot of season 4 with the villain The Thinker also being able to project himself into other people and jumping from body to body throughout the back half of the season, but it would have made a ton more sense in a paranormal superhero film and would have probably been a lot of fun to watch. Speaking of crowd pleasing scene sequences, the director also mentioned he had wanted to include a scene with the infamous Bruce Wayne/Batman:

“There was a moment when Batman came in briefly. They said, ‘We need a plane,’ and ‘A friend of mine has a plane,’ and then you were in Bruce Wayne’s office. I would have loved to have done it. Now, I wouldn’t.”

Whether he was referring to the Ben Affleck version of the character at the time will probably be a question we never get a direct answer to, but it’s certainly cool to imagine. The team was set to include members John Constantine, Swamp Thing, Deadman, Etrigan, Zatanna, and Klarion the Witch Boy. Not much else has been revealed about other character inclusions outside of the core team members, but Del Toro did reveal for the first time one of the villains of the film. The director mentions specifically that the character of Swamp Thing had been very fleshed out, and one of the reasons for that was because Floronic Man of the Swamp Thing comics was set to be one of the films main antagonists:

 “The plot made absolute perfect sense. I really loved how they got tangled. We had the Floronic Man as one of the villains. It was really great because Swamp Thing was very fleshed out.”

Floronic Man was one of Swamp Thing’s main villains in the comics and also went by the alias’ of Plant Master, Floro, and the Seeder. The character was included in both the 1997 Swamp Thing film and the more recent DC Universe Swamp Thing streaming series. The character can merge with and control plants, a perfect foil for the plant based hero. Floronic Man has been around since 1962 and has a deep history with Swamp Thing, making him a perfect villain for the film, even if he may have not been the only antagonist to face the team.

As it stands, Del Toro also mentioned that he has not yet had any discussion with DCU co-CEO James Gunn about bringing in his Dark Universe ideas to the new DCU, but gives the director and creative-head praise by saying that he thinks Gunn is, “remarkably smart”, and he, “loved Superman“. The new Superman film was much more liberal with the fantasy and sci-fi aspects of the character then fans have been used to since the Man of Steel more grounded version, and it’s much more on brand with Del Toro’s style of work so it makes sense he would be singing the director praise.

With all this new information, I can honestly say I am a little upset that we never received this version of the film. It sounds like Marvel is going to be doing something similar with their more dark and magic based characters in the upcoming Midnight Sons film, but I would absolutely love if Gunn and Del Toro teamed up to explore these characters in the new DCU. Let us know if this is something you’d like to see down in the comments!

Source: Josh Horowitz via Comic Book Movie