New ‘Swamp Thing Movie’ Finds Director

Just a day after the project was formally announced, it looks like Swamp Thing already has a director.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, James Mangold is in “early talks” to helm the new DC Universe’s Swamp Thing. The film was among the first five titles in “Chapter 1” (also known as “Gods and Monsters”) of the relaunched DC Studios universe from James Gunn and Peter Safran. Per THR, “Mangold is said to be a massive fan of the character and the stories. According to sources, he approached Gunn and Safran with his ideas. Swamp Thing would be a few years away, however, and Mangold’s next project after Dial of Destiny will be a Bob Dylan biopic for Paramount.”

Mangold strongly teased his involvement in the project early Wednesday, when he tweeted this pic of Swamp Thing by famous artist Bernie Wrightson.

In the official press release for the new DC Universe, Warner Bros. described the Swamp Thing film as a tale of the character’s “dark origins.” That would certainly align with Mangold’s interests. He previously made two fairly dark comic-book movies for Fox: The Wolverine and Logan. He‘s currently directing the upcoming fifth Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

This will be Swamp Thing’s third film, following two relatively low-budget horror pictures in the 1980s. (The first one, directed by a young Wes Craven, is actually pretty good.) He was most recently adapted as the star of a streaming TV series that was available on the short-lived DC Universe service. When the service was folded into HBO Max, most of its programming shifted over there, but at the present the Swamp Thing show is not available there.