Justice League Dark Series in the Works at HBO Max, From J.J. Abrams
It looks like the Green Lanterns will have some super friends over at HBO Max.
Five months after it was announced that Greg Berlanti was developing a series based on characters from the iconic Green Lantern comic, HBO Max has made a production commitment to “a major series based on DC characters in the Justice League Dark Universe” — and it is but one of three new projects for the upcoming streamer from J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot shingle.
No further details were shared.
The other Bad Robot orders from HBO Max include a horror-thriller series inspired by and featuring iconic characters from Stephen King’s The Shining, plus an original series. (Read more on those two here.)
“What an amazing start to our association with the wildly imaginative Bad Robot team under J.J. and Katie,” HBO Max CCO Kevin Reilly said in a statement. “What could be better than an original J.J. idea and then Warner Bros. letting them loose on iconic I.P. from Stephen King and the DC Universe and to provide more must-have programming on HBO Max.”
The Justice League Dark itself is a superhero team that originally was comprised of characters such as Zatanna, Madame Xanadu, John Constantine, Shade and the Changing Man, while later incarnations involved Swamp Thing, Wonder Woman and Detective Chimp.
Berlanti’s aforementioned Green Lantern series — which was “in the early stages” as of January, TVLine previously reported — “is going to span several decades and focus on the origin story of two major Green Lanterns on Earth” while also going into space to explore Green Lantern favorite Sinestro.
Will either JL Dark or Green Lantern be shared with DC Universe? Are DC Universe’s days numbered?
I’m assuming they won’t be able to use Constantine or Swamp Thing. Which kind of makes this a little on the DOA side. As much as I love Zatanna and kind of dig Madame Xanadu, JL Dark team without the other two, feels incomplete. I’d hope they’d include Deadman and Shade, the Changing Man since they were founding members. And they haven’t really been done before in live action. I doubt they will use WW which is fine because her inclusion never felt right.
They could use swamp thing. Constantine confirmed his existence on legends
Using Constantine would be up to DC, but they would have to remove him from Legends to use him on the Dark Universe show. And since he’s so well known, he would overshadow the other characters. I suspect they’ll start without him and possibly have him appear later in cameos. The would be freer to use Swamp Thing, but I suspect they won’t since it would require a lot of makeup or CG.
YESSSSSS
I hope they take heavy inspiration from the comics and the amazing animated movie that was released a few years ago. I’m not sure whether TV is a good fit … the characters require a lot to good CGI to make it believable so I hope they invest in a good budget.
HBO Max + JJ = $$$$$$$$ budget
Has JJ Abrams ever not destroyed a beloved franchise? He has done some good original stuff, but his history with established worlds is less than good.
Mission: Impossible 3 had the lowest box office return of the franchise and it’s still going. Not certain that it’s beloved but it’s survived. As will Trek and Star Wars. It’s just that Rise of Skywalker was so… dull.
I can speak more about Star Trek than Star Wars, but JJ took a pretty sturdy franchise and drove it into the ground. I know that Star Trek needed the time off that it got, but there’s no reason why the franchise couldn’t come back and be strong. The new movies simply had every wrong decision made, resulting in films that not only failed to attract new audiences, but also alienated the core Trekkies. Everything that followed the 2009 movie on the big screen as well as the new shows, has just kept driving that ship deeper into the ground.
The only way for Star Trek to survive in the long run would be to go back and pretend that the past decade never happened, and all of this traces back to JJ Abrams. I don’t think he is without talent, but I don’t think he plays well in preestablished sandboxes.
Huh? Abrams successfully resurrected ‘Mission: Impossible’ AND ‘Star Trek.’
It would be awesome for it to feature the Swamp Thing from the cancelled too soon DC series and the John Constantine we know. I think John has outgrow Legends. But… likely we will get new takes on the characters.
I’m excited because I love Justice League Dark and especially Zatanna but what does this mean for Constantine on Legends? Justice League Dark wouldn’t feel the same without him. Would they allow two versions of the same character or would only one of them be allowed to use him?
Zero details have been revealed about which characters will be in the TV series.
It really wouldn’t be Justice League Dark without Zatanna. I would venture to say Constantine as well, but he isn’t strictly an active member in the current line up. If they think he should stay in the Arrowverse, it will likely be a Zatanna fronted series. I dig it.
Why isn’t Justice League Dark on DC Universe On line?
“Shade the Changing Man”, not “Shade and the Changing Man”