Fan-favorite director Guillermo del Toro is a pretty busy guy, who picks up and drops out of projects at an alarming pace. Luckily for us, Justice League Dark is a film that he’s very much interested in making, and recently stated that he’s still hard at work on making it a reality. The film will focus on the “Dark Universe” of DC Comics mythology, and exist within the same continuity as the rest of the DCCU, which kicked off with last year’s Man of Steel and continues in 2016 with Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. If del Toro plays his cards right, and impresses the studio heads at Warner Brothers, Justice League Dark could very well become one of the nine untitled DC films that are slated for release between 2016 and 2020.
One of the most interesting (and inherently problematic) things about Justice League Dark is the fact that its main character is John Constantine. By now you’re likely aware that Constantine is getting his own self-titled series this fall on NBC. We know that the DC film and television universes will be separate… but is there room to fit Constantine into the film side since it doesn’t share the same continuity as The CW’s Arrow and The Flash or Fox’s Gotham?
According to del Toro, it’s possible. He recently spoke with IGN and confirmed that the movie is still in the scripting stage, but that he and WB are seeing “eye to eye” on what the final product will be. When asked about keeping the universes separate, and possibly including a character like The Spectre in Justice League Dark, del Toro said:
“I would love to have The Spectre in it, because he’s one of the most..absolutely, beyond moral characters in this universe and he does crazy things…but, I’m happy with…they’re doing that with ‘Constantine.’
What I made clear to them is that the TV series will not affect the movie and they said that’s okay. They said you can have independence. Now, if we see the TV series and we can mesh with it or cast the same actor depending on where the movie is going, I would be happy to consider that.”
In addition to his comments, del Toro also listed a possible roster for JLD as including “Etigan the Demon, Deadman, Swamp Thing, Zatanna, Constantine, The Floronic Man, and many, many others.”
Of course, it’s definitely possible to have two different versions of John Constantine on screen at once. We saw it happen when Superman Returns hit theaters with a different Clark Kent/Superman than The CW’s Smallville, but in a post-Marvel world, where shared universes and continuity are the name of the game, fans are eager to see storylines between the films and television shows intersect.
Personally, if any of the DC shows crossed over into the films, I would rather it be Constantine and Justice League Dark. Arrow and The Flash would introduce too many continuity and character problems into the film universe to make a merger viable or worth the effort, and Gotham‘s prequel format doesn’t exactly fit what we’ll be seeing in Batman V Superman.
In truth, we’ll have to wait and see how Constantine performs when the series debuts on October 24th, 2014. If the series is a massive disappointment or gets cancelled, this whole conversation is moot. If it’s a massive hit, however, it could propel WB to consider del Toro’s proposal and ship John Constantine off to the movie-verse to do battle with DC’s dark and creepy supernatural characters.
Tell us, would you like to see the TV Constantine in Justice League Dark? Or should the two remain completely separate? Sound off in the comments below.
