James Mangold wants to “say something original” with ‘Swamp Thing’.
The 61-year-old director is set to helm the movie about the comic book monster for DC Studios, though he has insisted ‘Swamp Thing’ will be a standalone project and has no plans to expand it into the wider DC Universe (DCU).
Mangold told MovieWeb: “In relation to like ‘Swamp Thing’ at DC, It's just a matter of do we find a way on the page to say something original.”
Mangold - who is also due to helm the ‘Star Wars’ spin-off ‘Dawn of the Jedi’ for Lucasfilm - emphasised he didn’t want to be “handcuffed” by the wider stories of a blockbuster franchise because they generally have a “religious level” of lore to uphold.
He said: “I'm not that interested in being handcuffed by so much lore at this point that it's almost immovable, and you can't please anybody.”
Even so, the ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’ filmmaker teased he would be bringing different tones and concepts to ‘Swamp Thing’ and his ‘Star Wars’ movie after experimenting with different genres in other projects.
He explained: “I've been afforded the chance [to work] in different genres, because people will finance it. If I was just a horror director and people only wanted to pay for my horror movies, that would be a different problem.
“But part of the joy is that you learn a lot when you are changing genres or the vernacular in some of the way you communicate in your art.”
The ‘Logan’ director added: “I've learned a lot, whether it's making an action film, or whether it's making a Western and bringing those energies to a kind of superhero film or Marvel film.
“You not only learn things making one genre, but then you learn how to carry over lessons from that genre into another one that you might not expect.”
Mangold previously said he would be “doing [his] own thing” with ‘Swamp Thing’ and revealed it wouldn’t be linked to the wider DCU, much like Matt Reeves’ ‘The Batman’ series.
He told Variety: “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 filmmaker added he had been “toying for years with the idea of making a kind of Frankenstein movie”, and ‘Swamp Thing’ had finally given him the chance to do so.
While Mangold has been working on ‘Swamp Thing’, the movie is yet to receive a release date, nor have any cast members been confirmed for the project.
Meanwhile, horror writer and director Mike Flanagan - who is due to helm ‘The Exorcist’ reboot - is set to work on a ‘Clayface’ flick for DC after the moviemaker’s pitch impressed studio head James Gunn.
The DC Studios boss told io9: “Mike came in. He pitched this wonderful idea. I was like, ‘Damn, I can’t believe you got me to want to make a Clayface movie.’
“But he’s got to write the script and who knows how that’s going to work. He goes and he writes the script. First draft is great. Second draft is even better. And then I’m like, ‘Let’s do it.’
“So we found a place for it because if there’s quality stuff, we can find a way to work it in.”
