James Wan Denies Batman Horror Movie Wishes

During the press junket for Aquaman, director James Wan answered a seemingly harmless hypothetical question about what other DC superhero movies he would love to tackle, in a perfect world, and not surprisingly, his answer set the Internet on fire. Wan said that he would love to direct a horror-style Batman movie – a claim that had fans heavily debating its potential merits:

“In the past like most people I loved the idea of directing Batman, but a horror version of Batman,” Wan told HeroicHollywood. “That would be a potential fantasy of mine, but I feel like he’s been done quite a fair bit. But, I do love the idea of doing an outright scary Batman. I feel like that’d be really cool.”

Well, as usual, the Internet is getting way ahead of itself with all of the arguments about a Batman movie that doesn’t – and has never even been proposed to – exist. In fact, one DC fan wet so far as to create a mockup of what The Joker could look like in Wan’s Batman horror film; that little act of proactive imagination forced the following response from Wan:

More so than other comic book movie franchises, the DC Extended Universe is known for having fans jumping the gun with speculation about matters that may or may not actually materialize into films. This is just such a case, as Wan is probably wholly focused on completing the massive undertaking that was Aquaman and getting out into theaters. In fact, Wan has been on a serious roller-coaster ride the last few years. He tried to leave his safe space in the horror genre and branch into big blockbuster movies; instead, Wan had to scramble like a madman to complete Furious 7 after the death of Paul Walker, and fight to make Aquaman amidst the bad reactions to Batman v Superman, Justice League, and the whole DCEU franchise, in general.

That’s all to say: the only thing that’s probably on James Wan‘s mind right now is taking a well-deserved break – not taking a high-risk approach to one of the most high-pressure movie franchises there is.

Upcoming DC Extended Universe films include Aquaman on December 21st, Shazam on April 5, 2019, and Wonder Woman 2 on November 1, 2019.