Ever since Star Wars director J.J. Abrams signed an exclusive deal with Warner Bros. last year, fans have long suspected that he would soon be put to work on the DC universe. There have been reports linking him to varying projects before now, but this afternoon an official announcement was made revealing Abrams’ first dabble in the DC toybox.
As revealed by The Hollywood Reporter, he’s helming a Justice League Dark TV series for HBO Max. Which really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, given that We Got This Covered told you this was happening months ago, with THR now confirming our scoop.
Justice League Dark is in development through Bad Robot Productions and Warner Bros. TV Group, with Abrams’ wife and producing partner Katie McGrath also on board. This is one of three projects from the filmmaker set for WB’s new streaming service that were revealed today. The other two are Duster, an original series cooked up by Abrams, and Overlook, a spinoff of The Shining that will feature characters from the Stephen King novel/Stanley Kubrick movie.
“What an amazing start to our association with the wildly imaginative Bad Robot team under J.J. and Katie,” said Kevin Reilly, chief content officer at HBO Max, in a statement. “What could be better than an original J.J. idea and then Warner Bros. letting them loose on iconic IP from Stephen King and the DC Universe and to provide more must-have programming on HBO Max.”
Of course, a JLD movie has been in the works at WB for years now, with Guillermo del Toro initially attached for the earlier part of the last decade. Doug Liman was then due to direct until he jumped ship, too. With a cinematic production stuck in development hell, then, it seems the studio and Abrams decided the best course of action was to shift the IP over to the small screen instead.
Justice League Dark stars the supernatural counterparts to the regular JLA, including John Constantine, Zatanna and Swamp Thing. It’s not yet clear whether Abrams is just producing or if he’ll have a greater creative control on the series, but now that his first DC gig has been confirmed, more news should come our way in no time.