On the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, del Toro revealed that he was positioning John Constantine as the film’s lead among a group of horror and magic-themed heroes like Swamp Thing, Zatanna, and Deadman. Here, the director told host Josh Horowitz that Swamp Thing had a good arc in the film, and the team would have “tangled into the Floronic Man”, both elements he would have liked to have created for the script.
Whereas dark Not reaching the casting stage, del Toro revealed that he wanted Doug Jones as Deadman. Both had worked together before bad boy movies and water shape, And del Toro admitted that he wanted Jones primarily “because I knew physically he could suit it, and I knew his mannerisms.” It seems like Deadman would have had a bigger role in the movie: not only would he have got an action scene where he uses his possession powers to jump from one body to another to chase down bad guys (including an old woman), he would have brought the JLD to Gotham so they could ask Batman to borrow a plane. This is something del Toro would “love” to see in the film, but later, not anymore.
Even today, the director said he still “loves” the script he composed for justice league darkSaying that “it brought everyone in seamlessly.” When asked about possibly reviving it under the current James Gunn regime, del Toro said the two have been in touch, but there have been no conversations about it. As he told Horowitz, “The script exists,” so maybe someday things could work out in their favor, even if it’s just another animated movie.
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