The Shaun Wren Blog: DC Films News Round-Up - Elseworlds, Suicide Squad 2, Justice League Dark & Justice League Images

IMAGE VIA CLAY ENOS/WARNER BROS

News around DC Films is a little on the light side, but it’s still interesting pieces surrounding the future projects within the DCEU and these Elseworlds stories.

Joker Origin

Speaking of the Elseworlds movies, we got a little more info about this rumoured Joker origin film from the most unlikely of places.

Speaking to the voice of the UFC Joe Rogan’s podcast, called the Joe Rogan Experience, former MMA fighter Brendan Schaub was talking about his transition to Hollywood. (via Batman News)

Discussion turned to Tim Burton, which then led to Batman and then led to the new Joker movie. It turns out Schaub is friends with Todd Phillips’ agent, Todd Feldman, and he revealed some details about what we could possibly see around the 1:03:32 mark.

IMAGE VIA DC COMICS

“It’s dark. It’s like a dark Joker. As a kid, he had a permanent smile and everyone made fun of him. It’s like on the streets of Brooklyn. It’s super dark and real” said Schaub.

This matches everything we know from last week’s surprise breaking story. With Martin Scorsese’s involvement, it's a Joker origin film set on the streets of Gotham City in the 80s and it’ll be a gritty and grounded hard-boiled crime movie.

Suicide Squad 2

IMAGE VIA CLAY ENOS/ WARNER BROS

Coming back to the DCEU, Warner Bros and DC have been searching for a director of Suicide Squad 2 for a while with the hopes of cashing in on the box office success of the original movie.

This seems less likely due to the schedule of Will Smith as Variety’s Justin Kroll as revealed production for the sequel won’t happen until fall (Autumn) 2018 at the earliest.

So hearing at the earliest, SUICIDE SQUAD 2 won't go in to production until fall 2018 because of Smith's schedule with ALADDIN and GEMINI
— Justin Kroll (@krolljvar) 29 August 2017

This is down to Smith’s commitments to Aladdin (he’s playing the Genie) and another movie called Gemini Man.

If you try and figure it all out, this would mean Suicide Squad 2 won’t be in cinemas until 2020 and films like the Joker and Harley Quinn spinoff and Gotham City Sirens could also be delayed.

IMAGE VIA CLAY ENOS/ WARNER BROS

I don’t know why because the Joker/Harley spinoff seems like the perfect way to follow-up from the ending of Suicide Squad and the end of this spinoff could go straight into GCS.

So the only reason why these films might take a backseat is that both Harley Quinn and Joker will be in the sequel.

Justice League Dark

Finding a new director of Justice League Dark, after Doug Liman left to do Chaos Walking, has been harder than WB and DC thought and been unimpressed with different director’s pitches.

So according to Deadline, the studio has hired someone to polish the script and that’s Gerard Johnstone.

Johnstone’s director debut 2014’s Housebound won rave reviews and the New Zealander impressed during his presentation.

This polishing will likely mean the Kiwi will be announced as the director of Justice League Dark.

JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK

This seems to be the perfect result for everyone as Johnstone comes from a horror background and this film is based on the darker version of the Justice League – reportedly centred on John Constantine, Swamp Thing, Zatanna, Deadman and Etrigan the Demon.

Let’s see what happens, but I’m hoping Warner Bros gives this young, up-and-coming director a chance with a decent middle budget of $80 million. In return, we get a cool, Rated R, action, horror superhero film.

Justice League

Finally, a website called HD Wallpapers have given fans a treat by creating individual posters of the Justice League heroes based on the awesome Alex Ross inspired Comic-Con poster.

Check out below and you’ll see 4K images of Ben Affleck’s Batman, Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, Ezra Miller as The Flash, Aquaman played by Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher’s Cyborg and the group shot without the writing.