Justice League Dark, the relatively new iteration of the famed Justice League comic book franchise which functions as a home for some of DC's supernatural and horror-themed heroes, is firmly in Guillermo del Toro's sights. And why is this? It's all because of the director's love of the characters.
"When I was following the DC Comics in my youth," del Toro told ScreenRant, "my favorites were Swamp Thing, Demon, Deadman...my earliest love was Constantine, and I love Zatanna, Destiny, the whole mythology. So we're working on a really rich mythological environment."
While del Toro's involvement in the Justice League Dark film (currently known as Dark Universe) isn't anything new, his statement here is worth unpacking. He specifically mentions Destiny, a member of the Endless, whose numbers (of course) include Neil Gaiman's Sandman. Might del Toro's quote about introducing a "rich mythological environment" mean that we'll see glimpses of a wider DC supernatural universe that could be expanded into other films? Might Dark Universe turn out to be our first look at the world of the Sandman?
It's interesting to note that despite the success of Man of Steel, a film teaming up a number of DC's lesser known characters at least appears to have more of a creative head of steam behind it than a "traditional"Justice Leaguemovie. Who knows? We may have a shared Vertigo cinematic universe before we get a more conventional shared cinematic DC superhero universe. And if that means we'll finally get to see some Sandmanconcepts on the big screen, that's not a bad thing at all.