‘Swamp Factor’ Is Alive: DC Says the Script Is Being Written

Anyone is typing Swamp Factor proper now. DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran informed Deadline on the Clayface premiere carpet that James Mangold’s model of the character continues to be transferring: “We’re engaged on it, completely.” The script, he mentioned, “is being written as we converse.”

That’s the first phrase on the movie in additional than a yr.

Mangold Needs Gothic Horror, Not an Origin Story

Mangold has been connected to write down and direct since early 2023, when James Gunn and Safran unveiled their first DC Studios slate and put a horror title on it. Chatting with Selection that June whereas selling Indiana Jones and the Dial of Future, Mangold described what he wished: “a quite simple, clear, Gothic horror film about this man/monster.” He mentioned he would deal with it as “only a standalone.”

Coming from the director of Logan, that may be a extra particular promise than it sounds. Alan Moore’s run on the comedian within the Eighties is without doubt one of the few superhero books that reads like precise horror, and a standalone is the one form that lets a studio adapt it with out hanging a universe off the again of it.

The Holdup Is a Calendar, Not a Script Downside

Safran put the timing on Mangold’s availability relatively than on something inventive: “while you’ve already acquired a filmmaker concerned, you’ve acquired to attend for his or her window.” Mangold has not had a lot of 1. He launched Dial of Future in 2023 and A Full Unknown in 2024, and he’s additionally connected to a Star Wars movie introduced the identical yr as Swamp Factor. No launch date has been set.

Clayface Obtained Made, Three Different Titles Did Not

Safran was speaking on the premiere of the studio’s first R-rated horror launch, and the primary reactions to Clayface referred to as it brutal, gory physique horror. Three different titles from that 2023 announcement, Paradise Misplaced, The Authority and Sgt. Rock, have been pushed again indefinitely.

The final live-action Swamp Factor was the 2019 sequence created by Gary Dauberman and Mark Verheiden for the DC Universe streaming service, with Derek Mears within the go well with. Its order was minimize from 13 episodes to 10 throughout manufacturing, and it was cancelled on June 6, one week after its premiere.

These ten episodes are higher than that historical past suggests. Earlier than them the position belonged to Dick Durock, who performed Swamp Factor in Wes Craven’s 1982 movie, its 1989 sequel and 72 episodes of a USA Community sequence throughout three seasons. Mangold’s script is the primary new try on the character in seven years.