Justice League Dark Movies and Shows in Development From J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot

JJ Abrams and his Bad Robot production house have a fancy new overall deal at Warner Brothers and it looks like the company has officially been attached to its first superhero property. A new report from Deadline suggests Bad Robot will be developing movies and televisions shows based upon DC Comics’ Justice League Dark property. As it stands now, there’s no single character or iteration of the team actively in development, though Bad Robot is set to meet with writers shortly about potential projects.

The report suggests Bad Robot Head of Motion Pictures Hannah Minghella and Head of Television Ben Stephenson will be spearheading the earliest development efforts with screenwriters.

Featuring DC’s bigger horror characters from John Constantine to Zatanna, Swamp Thing, and beyond, this isn’t the first time a Justice League Dark movie or show has been brought up. At one point, the Oscar-winning Guillermo del Toro was attached to develop the same movie, though that process eventually broke apart.

“To be clear these screenplays are WRITTEN, done,” del Toro tweeted in 2018. “Each of them took months or years of my life. Meetings, synopsis, beat sheets and were all written, features- 90-130 pages each. These are not ‘maybes’ or ‘wish list’ items. They are done.”

Alongside Justice League Dark becoming a forgotten project of del Toro’s were his version of Pacific Rim 2 in addition to an Incredible Hulk television show for ABC. Shortly after del Toro left the project, Swingers helmer Doug Liman boarded the film and eventually, decided to leave to pursue other projects.

“I would be open to it,” Liman said about a potential Justice League Dark return. “I have a very kind of contrarian approach to how I make things and I don’t want to do them the way other people have done them. You know, Impulse is an original take on superpower as you can imagine and still be satisfying. Because obviously there’s some things – you can be original and artsy and not…”

Upcoming DC movies include Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) on February 7th, Wonder Woman 1984 on June 5th, The Batman on June 25, 2021, The Suicide Squad on August 6, 2021, Black Adam on December 22, 2021, Shazam! 2 on April 1, 2022, The Flash on July 1, 2022, and Aquaman 2 on December 16, 2022.