James Gunn and Peter Safran announcing that the first slate of projects in the rechristened DCU would fall under the Chapter 1: Gods & Monsters banner certainly made it sound like a shared universe, as did the co-CEOs outlining how characters would recur across film, television, live-action, animation, and possibly even video games, but James Mangold doesn’t care.
The Academy Award-nominated filmmaker behind such disparate and renowned titles as Walk the Line, Cop Land, Logan, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, and many more actually made the first move by letting Warner Bros. and DC know he’d be interested in tackling Swamp Thing, which was an offer that was promptly taken up.
However, in an interview with Variety, the writer and director of the supernaturally-tinged comic book adaptation that’s already been revealed as part of an interconnected mythology didn’t seem too concerned abiding by the official party line.
“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. I’ve been toying for years with the idea of making a kind of Frankenstein movie. Just doing my own thing with this, just a standalone.”
You have to admire Mangold’s desire to stick to his guns, because you know Gunn and Safran would be the first ones on the phone should Swamp Thing make a killing at the box office to gauge his interest in helming additional adventures. He doesn’t seem keen, though, and it would admittedly be refreshing change of pace for a movie that’s technically part of an overarching mythology to be made with the sole intention of being a one-and-done.