For a guy who’s heavily criticized big movie franchises in the past, James Mangold sure likes dipping his toes into those worlds. After The Wolverine, Logan, and the final Indiana Jones installment, he’s ready to enter the Star Wars galaxy and James Gunn’s all-new DCU. His plan to avoid angering even more rabid fans? Doing his own thing aside from larger universe plans, and that will be directly felt in his Swamp Thing adaptation.
The filmmaker, who’s also enjoyed plenty of success in recent times with movies like Ford v Ferrari and A Complete Unknown, recently chatted to MovieWeb about his recent work on the Timothée Chalamet-led Bob Dylan biopic and what the future holds for him. Word on the street is that his Star Wars ‘ancient times’ prequel might be up next, but you never know with Lucasfilm. However, the studio and Disney were happy with the fifth Indiana Jones from a creative standpoint, so that second collaboration has high chances of actually happening.
During that same interview, Mangold expressed his interest in telling a self-contained story (something he achieved twice during his time at Fox/Marvel) with Swamp Thing: “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… Just doing my own thing with this, just a standalone.”
The writer-director has navigated the ‘franchise waters’ thrice already, so it comes as no surprise he’s well aware of the difficulties that come with trying to tell your own story inside someone else’s sandbox. Still, James Gunn’s approach to his DCU seems to be very chill so far, with a Luca Guadagnino-directed Sgt. Rock movie potentially in the works and Batman villain Clayface getting a grounded thriller penned by Mike Flanagan.
The current intention is to make Swamp Thing a mixed-genre standalone, the sort of stuff that’s been working in recent times versus bloated superheroic extravaganzas (though Deadpool & Wolverine proved last year there’s a hunger for certain characters). With The Penguin’s success on Max still fresh, it feels like the perfect time at DC Studios to push for more character-driven, grounded tales that happen to use renowned comic book properties.
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