The Swamp Thing movie James Mangold is developing for DC Studios is still moving forward, with co-CEO Peter Safran confirming that the screenplay is being written.
It has been a long time since Mangold was announced as the writer and director of Swamp Thing, one of the first projects revealed for the DC Universe being built by James Gunn and Peter Safran. There haven’t been many updates on the film since then, but Safran has now offered a fresh indication that the project remains in development.
Speaking to Deadline on the red carpet at the premiere of Clayface, Safran confirmed that work on the Swamp Thing screenplay is ongoing.
“We’re working on it, absolutely,” Safran told the outlet. “The script is being written as we speak. But it’s something we’re excited about. All these things take time – when you’ve already got a filmmaker involved, you’ve got to wait for their window [of availability] as well.”
Safran’s comments are encouraging news for anyone waiting to see Mangold’s take on the DC Comics character. However, they don’t establish a production start date, and DC Studios has yet to announce when the movie might reach theatres. The comments also don’t directly confirm whether Mangold is currently writing the screenplay himself, although Mangold said four years ago that he was working on the script.
Mangold’s credits include Logan, The Wolverine, Ford v Ferrari, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. He has previously described his vision for the project as a standalone horror movie, rather than a story that needs to connect extensively with the wider DC Universe.
“With other kinds of IP, it gets to a religious level. 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.”
Mangold has also said he had been thinking about making “a kind of Frankenstein movie” for years. When he learned that Gunn and Safran were taking charge of DC’s film and television adaptations at Warner Bros., he contacted them about making Swamp Thing. The film was announced as part of the first chapter of the new DC Universe, titled Gods and Monsters. Even so, Mangold’s stated intention to approach the material as a self-contained Gothic horror story could give the project a distinct identity within the developing franchise.
This wouldn’t be the first live-action adaptation of Swamp Thing. Wes Craven directed the 1982 feature film, which was followed by Jim Wynorski’s The Return of Swamp Thing in 1989. More recently, a live-action series produced by James Wan’s Atomic Monster premiered in 2019, offering a darker take on the character.
For now, Safran’s comments provide a welcome update, but the film remains in development, with no announced release date or production timeline. We’ll have to wait and see when Mangold’s schedule allows him to bring his version of the Swamp Thing story to the screen.
Are you looking forward to seeing James Mangold write and direct a standalone Swamp Thing horror movie? Let us know in the comments below.
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