Back in October, Warner Brothers officially released its ambitious slate of DC Comics adaptations. The ten-film lineup includes such titles as Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad, two Justice League films and solo pictures for Wonder Woman, The Flash, Aquaman, Shazam, Cyborg and Green Lantern. While solo Batman and Superman films are also expected to be crammed somewhere between now and 2020, one character is noticeably absent from this roster: blue skinned Czarnian anti-hero Lobo.
Back in 2012, Journey 2: The Center of the Earth director Brad Peyton was brought on with The Matrix producer Joel Silver to bring DC’s resident intergalactic bounty hunter to the big screen, with Dwayne Johnson tentatively attached to star.
As you can see by WB’s DC slate, Lobo is nowhere to be found and has likely fallen into the treacherous realm of Hollywood limbo, where many finished screenplays and ambitious ideas sit on shelves (sometimes forever). While doing some press for his next film, San Andreas, Peyton opened up a bit about why he thinks Lobo‘s been put on the backburner:
“I think what’s happening with DC is that they have prioritized what they need to make first in order to kind of lay the foundation for the DC Universe. This is what I believe is happening just from what they’ve been talking about. They’re talking about Justice League, Batman v Superman and going into Flash, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman. Those are kind of the pillars of that universe.”
Peyton’s right about that, and one can hardly blame Warner Brothers for basing its big shared universe plans around the biggest DC characters. As cool as Lobo is, he’s not of the same calibre as someone like the Flash or Wonder Woman and arguably not as deserving of a cinematic treatment.
Once WB lays the groundwork for the DCCU, it’s entirely possible that we’ll finally see some of the tertiary and more outlandish supporting characters get their due – which gives Peyton hope that we’ll eventually see Lobo:
“I think there’s going to be a really amazing time for ‘Lobo’ and I think people are going to realize, certainly once they revisit it, what they’re sitting on,” he says. “But you never know. I’m really happy with the project and where we got it and fingers crossed it comes to fruition at some point…
It’s one of those things where, creatively, you and I get it, but there’s a lot of people that don’t quite get that,” Peyton said when asked if the success of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy helped bolster the chances of a film based on a similarly comedically irreverent space-traveling comic book character. “It’s a real uphill battle to talk people into spending a lot of money to do things correctly… I was really happy with the script, [though]. I talked with Dwayne about it. Joel Silver and I had a really amazing meeting about it. I did a rewrite of the script and was really, really excited for it. In their estimation, though, he wasn’t one of those main guys… That’s fair enough. I think that, to do any kind of comic book universe correctly, you do need to establish, ‘Here’s the tone. Here’s the main people.’ Then we can grow offshoots from there. With Marvel, they’re now doing smaller characters like ‘Ant-Man’ and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy.’ They obviously had to start, though, with their big guns and set up ‘The Avengers.’ I kind of feel like that’s where DC is now. They’re setting that team up.”
Tell us, would you like to see a Lobo solo film once the Justice League have assembled for the DC Cinematic Universe? Sound off in the comments below.